Satellite Imagery

Satellite images and the data they provide are likely the biggest-single advance in weather forecasting. Let’s take a closer look at weather satellites.

Tim Vasquez

Friday, December 27, 2024 at 08:00 AM ET

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This close-up look at the modern GOES satellite shows the key equipment packages that are on board. (NASA/NOAA)

Key Takeaways:

Weather satellites operate in two main orbits: geostationary (like GOES, providing continuous, fixed views over the equator) and low earth orbit (LEO, offering global coverage including poles twice daily), with the modern GOES-R series providing significant enhancements in resolution and data channels.
Pilots should leverage both high-resolution visible imagery (crucial for daytime detection of low-level features like fog and stratus) and infrared imagery (essential for nighttime, though challenged by low-level cloud camouflage).
For improved weather assessment, especially at night, pilots should utilize advanced multispectral products like "Night Microphysics" to detect otherwise hidden low-level stratus and fog.
It is critical to obtain satellite data from high-quality web sources (e.g., College of DuPage) that offer full resolution and multiple channels, as many mobile apps may provide degraded or limited information.

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Sliding into the winter months, VMC gets a little bit more difficult to find. All pilots end up digging into their toolbox of weather resources to avoid the clouds and precipitation. METAR and TAF reports help out a lot, but one of the longtime favorites for this problem is weather satellite data. Of course to make the most out of this tool we need to understand a little more about the satellites we have available and how they collect the data.

How It Works

As you might guess, we can get a weather satellite by simply launching a camera into space. In fact, the very first satellite image of clouds came from a captured V-2 rocket launched in 1946 at White Sands, New Mexico. But designing a useful weather satellite system that can be used as part of a forecast system involves much more than simply launching a camera.