Synthetic imagery from the 4-km NSSL-WRF ARW model is produced at CIRA and is available in real-time here:
The following loop shows Hurricane Irene at the time it was east of Florida:
The right side shows the synthetic infrared imagery from the 0000 UTC 25 August model run, and the corresponding GOES infrared imagery is on the left. Keep in mind some of the known biases with the model such as brightness temperatures typically warmer than GOES, and anvil cirrus from convection that is typically underdone. Synthetic imagery can be compared with GOES imagery to look for forecast trends in the Hurricane.