VISIT: Meteorological Interpretation Blog

ALPW Animation

During March 2024, NOAA-21 was declared the primary satellite of the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS). In early April 2024, NOAA-20 (newly designated as the secondary satellite) completed its orbital shift placing NOAA-20 a half-orbit (~50 minutes) a part from NOAA-21. The tertiary satellite, SNPP, is now positioned a quarter-orbit between NOAA-21 and NOAA-20. A Continue Reading

By Erin Sanders and Bernie Connell This year the second solstice occurred on December 21, 2023.  In Earth’s Northern Hemisphere this marks the start of astronomical winter and is the shortest day of the year in terms of possible daylight.  In the Southern Hemisphere the opposite is true and is where we will turn our 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

Source: JPSS River Ice and Flood Initiative call from September 19, 2023 Author: Sheldon Kusselson: Click on the image to start the video:   Download Powerpoint file

This summer 2023, NOAA-21 VIIRS Near-Constant Contrast (NCC) imagery has become available for National Weather Service (NWS) users to access in the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System – II (AWIPS-II) via the Satellite Broadcast Network (SBN). With the addition of NOAA-21 VIIRS NCC, users can now access the nighttime visible imagery from three JPSS polar-orbiting 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

Nighttime visible imagery (i.e. Near-Constant Contrast or NCC) clearly shows the Australian wildfires that are raging and ablaze in New South Wales, a state in southeastern Australia. NCC detects emitted lights from the fires, and at times shows the fire perimeter lines and reflected light from the extensive smoke plumes. The animation below displays nightly Continue Reading

By Lewis Grasso and Jorel Torres One of the goals of the JPSS program set forth by NOAA is enhanced monitoring of the Earth’s environment. One specific type of event of the Earth’s environment that was captured by VIIRS on-board not only the operational NOAA-20 satellite platform, but also the demonstration S-NPP satellite platform was Continue Reading