GOES-10 Results
last updated 8 June 2006
Please give credit for use of our GOES satellite images to: "NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center, data from NOAA GOES".
Table of Contents
Arizona dust storms (2.5 MB QT) on 7 June 2006.
Unusually monsoon-like winds swept the state in early June, bringing a wall of yellow dust to Pheonix.
Hurricane Otis and Pacific ship-tracks (4.0 MB GIF) at 1800 UTC on 30 September 2005.
The wide-angle view of the Pacific east of Baja captures serveral cloud types, including a vivid criss-cross pattern of ship-induced cloud-tracks in the marine stratus south-east of Los Angeles.
- Hurricanes Jova, Kenneth, and Max (1.0 MB GIF) at 1700 UTC on 21 September 2005.
While hurricane Rita gathered media attention by threatening Texas in the Gulf of Mexico, three hurricanes are underway in the north-east Pacific.
- Night watch of St. Helens volcanic ash (1.3 MB QT), during 0100-0700 UTC on 9 March 2005.
The difference in brightness temperature between the 11 and 12 micron infrared channels provides a unusual spectral signature for volcanic ash clouds, compared to ordinary water clouds. In this animation, the channel difference is colorized to present the ash cloud as red. The cloud starts out as white because it is mostly steam condensed to water and ice, and the volcanic ash become apparent in the later hours, as the cloud drifts eastward across Washington state during the night.
- Mount St. Helens belches at sunset (300 kB GIF) at 0145 UTC on 9 March 2005.
This event lofted a plume to 36,000 ft during the night, causing some re-routing of air traffic.
- Hurricane Marty at Baja (0.9 MB GIF), 1800 UTC on 22 September 2003.
The 100 mph storm moved across the peninsula over night, losing wind speed and organization by the time this picture was taken.
- California Fog Bowl (0.3 MB JPG) at 2045 UTC on 20 January 2003.
Winter fog fills the entire San Fernando valley and San Francisco Bay area, even at local noon.
Fog and no place to land is a serious problem for the many small airplanes that ply the California airspace.
- Santa Anna Winds (3.5 MB QT) 26-29 November 2002.
A high pressure center to the north combines with a low pressure center to the south to bring high-velocity easterly winds (known as the "Santa Anna") down out of the inter-mountain area across the coast of California.
Note the thermal signature of the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona at night in this combined visible/infrared time-series overlaid on a color background.
- Grand Canyon at Night (60 kB GIF) at 0300 GMT on 16 November 2002.
The grand gully through northern Arizona is a much warmer place than the surrounding highlands on a clear night in early winter, as shown in this infrared image (3.9 micron channel).
- Hurricane Kenna (5.0 MB QT) an enhanced visible-infrared band composite of the clouds overlaid on a color map, 24-25 October 2002.
The storm achieved category 5 (most severe) status over the ocean, but then exploded and fell apart as soon as it came ashore with 140 mph winds in west-central Mexico.
- Hurricanes Herman and Genevieve in the Pacific (0.6 MB JPG) at 1700 UTC on 1 September 2002.
Pacific hurricanes die off as they drift north-westward out of the warm waters of the Guatemala Basin into the cold California Current.
- Hurricane Fausto in the Pacific (3.2 MB GIF) at 1730 UTC on 25 August 2002.
The full-resolution visible image displays the difference between the quiescent marine stratus over the cold California current with the violet convection in the warm current in hurricane alley west of Mexico.
- Hurricane Douglas in the Pacific (0.2 MB JPG) at 0100 UTC on 24 July 2002.
Hurricanes on the Pacific side of hurricane alley are mostly of interest to surfers in southern California, who benefit from the waves they generate.
- Hot first day of spring in Mexico (0.5 MB GIF) at 2100 UTC on 20 March 2002.
The GOES-10 infrared view of the full earth at midday for the western Pacific shows a clear warm day for Mexico, while North America remains wintery with snow remaining all over the Rockies and cold rain all over the eastern USA.
- Ready for the Winter Olympics in Utah (0.6 MB GIF), a GOES-10 visible image at 2000 UTC on 3 February 2002 is bright and clear over a good layer of snow.
- Snow in Utah for the Winter Olympics (0.1 MB JPEG), GOES-10 visible image at 1800 GMT on 23 December 2001 reveals beautiful snow cover along the Wasatch Mountain range, east of Salt Lake.
- Hurricane Flossie off Baja (0.06 MB JPEG) at 1500 UTC on 30 August 2001.
These late summer storms in the subtropical NE Pacific are the source of the excellent surf that washes ashore a day later in Southern California.
This GOES-10 cloud image is an enhanced combination of visible and infrared data overlaid on a blue-green base map.
- The thermal West (4.1 MByte QT) 14-17 October 2000.
This movie in the 4 micron infrared channel shows how much the landscape of California and Nevada changes with the diurnal cycle.
Each image is grayscale-equalized for the eye, so thermally constant lakes in northeastern California appear relatively cold (white) during the day and relatively hot (dark) at night.
At night, vegetated regions are "rural heat islands" in the desert West.
Surprisingly, the fault lines in southwestern California also appear as warm streaks in the landscape just before dawn.
- Hurricane Lane off Baja (0.2 MByte JPEG) at 1630 UTC on 11 September 2000.
The cloud image is derived from GOES visible and thermal infrared channels at this time, while the colorized background is previously derived from a LANDSAT composite thematic map.
- Summertime sun-glint tour of the northern hemisphere (1.6 MByte QT) during 22 June 2000, from the viewpoint of GOES-10 at 135 W. Proceeding from sunset Hawaii, through the Bering Sea, the Chukchi Sea, the Beaufort Sea, the Arctic Ocean, Hudson's Bay, Canadian lakes, the Great Lakes, and ending with a nice shot of sun-glint in the Sargasso Sea (0.3 MByte GIF), with Florida and Cuba dim in the dawn light.
- Hurricane Carlotta and Baja whorls (0.6 MByte GIF) at 1730 UTC on 22 May 2000.
Winds had reached 125 mph, but the storm has started weakening in the colder waters of the California Current, which was also responsible for the fog and marine status clouds whirling lazily west of the Baja peninsula.
- Wildfire closes Los Alamos NM (0.7 MByte QT) 10 May 2000.
The fire, which destroyed 260 homes in the city, is the worst disaster ever created by a fire deliberately set by the National Park Service.
The GOES-10 visible imagery was overlaid on a geographical map of New Mexico to give an impression of natural color.
- Complex Clouds off California (5.8 MByte QT) on 1 February 2000.
Clouds of many kinds and heights move evolve in this one movie.
San Francisco Bay is on the upper right hand side.
- Hurricane Hillary full resolution, sharpened visible image at 2000 UTC on 19 September 1999.
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Salt Lake City tornado viewed from both GOES (0.7 MByte QT) at 1800 UTC on 11 August 1999.
The tornado was a F2 whirlwind.
The two GOES view sometimes almost coincide in time, despite the unsynchronized scanning schedules.
- Hurricanes Eugene and Dora side-by-side in the NE Pacific, west of Mexico 9 August 1999 at 1700 UTC.
- Big-eyed Hurricane Beatriz at 1530 UTC on 13 July 1999. The visible, 4 and 11 micron channels were used to make the false-color composite.
- GOES-10 view of killer tornadoes near Oklahoma City
- Hurricane Kay in the Pacific at 1600 UTC on 13 October 1998.
At this time, the little storm briefly achieved 65 knot winds.
- Wildfire in Banning, CA at 2300 UTC on 5 October 1998.
The hot spot in the 4 micron band (Imager channel 2) is used to highlight the fire with red in this enhanced false-color multi-spectral composite of the 0.5, 4 and 11 micron channels.
The smoke plume is carried southwest over the Los Angeles basin by the strong Santa Anna winds that are typical of this season.
- White Island volcano, New Zealand (0.3 MB QT movie) 3-4 September 1998.
This volcano had been active for weeks.
- Hurricane Howard in the Pacific 25 August 1998 at 1500 UTC.
The storm leads a procession of tropical depressions emerging from the west coast of Central America.
At this time, GOES-10 is on its way from the storages slot at 105W to the GOES-WEST operational slot at 135W.
- NOAA-NESDIS summarized the results from a month-long GOES-10 rapid scan schedule in the spring of 1998
- Colorful GOES-10 view of spring (5 MByte JPEG) at 1930 UTC on 4 April 1998.
This scan of the conterminous United States (CONUS) is one of those being taken every 5 minutes for a special NOAA test in March-April.
The colors come from combining the visible, 4 micron and 11 micron channels.
- Last GOES-10 full-disk picture before on-orbit storage 1 June 1998, 2045 UTC. NOAA-NESDIS will revive the satellite for operational use whenever GOES-8 or GOES-9 fails.
- GOES-10 visible fast-scan of tornado outbreak across Minnesota (3MB QT movie) on 29 March 1998.
The town of St. Peter (40 miles southeast of St. Paul) was devastated, and one boy was killed.
- GOES-10 fast-scan of hailstorms scuttling across Wisconsin (5MB QT movie) on 29 March 1998.
Baseball-sized hail occurred in the area around Green Bay WI.
- GOES-10 fast-scan of contrail formation in Mississippi (5MB QT movie) on the morning of 27 March 1998.
- GOES-10 fast-scan of heavy snow in New England (6MB QT movie) on 22 March 1998.
Five to ten inches of snow fell from Buffalo NY to Boston MA, in a wet spring storm driven by lake-effect snowfall and heavy winds from the low off Cape Cod.
- GOES-10 fast-scan of killer tornados in North Carolina (3MB QT movie) on the afternoon of 20 March 1998.
The tornados were reported at mid-afternoon (3:45 pm EST, or 2045 UTC), spawned from the same disturbance that hit northern Georgia that morning.
- GOES-10 visible fast-scan of killer tornados in Georgia (2MB QT movie) on the morning of 20 March 1998.
The tornados were reported at dawn (6:30 am EST, or 1130 UTC), and the storm clouds can be seen scuttling out of the area after destroying an elementary school.
- GOES-10 fast-scan of Oklahoma-Arkansas-Mississippi (14MB QT movie) on 19 March 1998
A classic snowstorm churns across the plains, driving intense squall lines across Mississippi and Tennessee.
- GOES-10 fast-scan of Great Lakes (11MB QT movie) on 18 March 1998.
In this case, a squall line forms in along the front at the Illinois-Indiana border late in the afternoon, developing into a towering line of thunderstorms across Indiana.
- GOES-10 fast-scan of Oklahoma (10MB QT movie) on 17 March 1998
This sequence is the first all-day test of the special GOES-10 CONUS-scan schedule running for 4 weeks in the spring of 1998.
There is a classic late-winter storm in the midwest, dumping rain, snow and freezing rain.
The clouds show many interesting features, such as standing waves in the clouds where low-level flow goes over the Ouchita mountains at the border between Arkansas and Oklahoma, and a very tight turn in the upper level clouds near the center of the low over northeast Nebraska.
- GOES fast-scan of Florida (5.5MB QT movie) on 12 March 1998.
This sequence is a preliminary 6 hour test of the special GOES-10 CONUS-scan schedule, planned for 4 weeks in the spring of 1998.
The continuity lets you see a massive cold air outbreak over the ocean, cirrus formation at the coast of Florida, and slow gravity waves in the off-shore clouds.
- After the Illinois-Indiana blizzard 12 March 1998.
The spring storm paralyzed the area with snow and bitter cold in mid-March.
It left an unusual snow-free band in lower Wisconsin, clear indications of the cities and drainage patterns, and an interesting ice spiral in the middle of Lake Michigan.
- A big day for GOES-10 (7MB QT movie) on 22 February 1998.
After a few days of post-launch testing of image-taking with the satellite "upside down", GOES-10 takes flawless big disk images all day.
- Visible channel 1, at 0.6 microns at 1930 UTC on 21 February 1998 (local sub-satellite noon):
First GOES-10 infrared images (Baja sector) on 20 August 1997.
These images were taken with GOES-10 inverted from its normal north-south orientation, in order to run the solar array backwards after the array stuck while being run forwards (see the GOES-10 Status Report.)
At the time, NESDIS could not process or broadcast inverted images.
So, these small pictures of the Baja region were custom-processed on a workstation and delivered as "screen shots". The pictures show no signs of radiometric problems. They look strange because the brightness is proportional to true infrared radiance (i.e. land is hot and bright, while clouds are cold and dark).
GOES-10 first visible image 13 May 1997, 1900 UTC. This is a screen-size image with about 16 km resolution at nadir (0.6 MB download, 0.9 MB GIF).
Some higher resolution images were created for better viewing and printing:
Technical tip: using Adobe Photoshop, you can roam and zoom through the high-resolution full-disk images, provided you have the MBytes of scratch disk space.
©COPYRIGHT AND WARRANTY DISCLAIMER NOTICE
This information resource was created by one irresponsible employee of NASA.
It is in the public domain and permission is granted to use, duplicate, modify and redistribute it.
Please give credit for the satellite images to NASA-Goddard Space Flight Center.
NASA and its employees provide absolutely NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.
mailto:
Dennis.Chesters@nasa.gov
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