VISIT: Meteorological Interpretation Blog

In complement to the NOAA-20 NUCAPS soundings, National Weather Service (NWS) forecasters now have access to another set of satellite-derived soundings from the European Metop-C satellite in AWIPS-II. As of 11 March 2024, the Metop-C NUCAPS soundings are accessible via Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN) across the CONUS (and globally). The Metop-C soundings provide mid-morning overpasses Continue Reading

Another atmospheric river event impacted the Pacific Northwest (PNW), earlier this week. Plumes of moisture moved into the region that led to heavy precipitation and flooding for the states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. 24-hour precipitation totals from Monday, 4 December through Tuesday, 5 December 2023 were quite impressive over western Washington. Additionally, the Seattle-Tacoma Continue Reading

As of early November 2023, the TOWR-S RPM v24 has been released for National Weather Service (NWS) users to update their local AWIPS terminals with the latest satellite data capabilities. Within the RPM v24 release, more NWS CONUS users will be able to access the Snowfall Rate (SFR) and the merged SFR (satellite plus radar) Continue Reading

Over the past week, fires were raging in the country of Bolivia. Numerous fires were observed by the GOES-16 geostationary satellite, and were spotted across the country. The largest fires were seen in central Bolivia, specifically located northwest of the city of Santa Cruz. On 22 October 2023, the GOES-16 ABI Day Fire RGB, which Continue Reading

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) constellation consists of 5 satellites: SNPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21, and the upcoming JPSS-3 and JPSS-4 satellites that will launch within the next decade. Focusing on the three active satellites, the current JPSS orbital configuration has NOAA-20 and SNPP at a 1/2 orbit apart (or ~50-minutes apart) where NOAA-21 is placed Continue Reading

Need a new satellite product to observe flooding? Look no further than the VIIRS Flood Map product. The VIIRS Flood Map calculates the flood extent of a 375-m pixel (i.e., known as the floodwater fraction percentage from 0 to 100%, displayed in green-to-red colors). The product also differentiates between scene types (e.g., cloud cover, bare Continue Reading

So far in 2023, western Canada has been overwhelmed with wildfires and smoke, and within the last week new fires erupted in the eastern province of Nova Scotia. At the time of this blog entry, over 22,000 hectares (or 54,000+ acres) were burned in the province. A VIIRS Day Fire RGB animation of the Nova Scotian Continue Reading

The Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) constellation currently consists of three satellites that provide environmental monitoring around the globe and datasets to users. The three satellites are the Suomi-National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – 20 (NOAA-20) and NOAA-21 (i.e., formerly known as JPSS-2). There are two more satellites that are Continue Reading