Thanks to This Satellite, We Will Never Be Wrong in Weather Forecasting Again!

NOAA’s new satellite, GOES-U, will launch on June 25 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, complementing NOAA’s GOES-R weather satellite constellation and revolutionizing both Earth and space weather forecasting.

This development will take meteorologists and scientists’ monitoring of our planet and beyond to a whole new level.

GOES-U: Next Generation Space and Earth Weather Forecasts

GOES satellites have been providing scientists with continuous data and images since 1975. However, advances in technology over the years and lessons learned from each satellite launch have led to a significant improvement in instruments and products in new models. The latest constellation of the GOES family launched in November 2016, with the launch of GOES-R.

Interviews with forecasters working in the National Weather Service Los Angeles office revealed how the various images and observations provided by these new satellites are used in each role.

Meteorologists shared how these images are used in forecasts and how effective they are in sending warnings to the public about bad weather conditions.

John Cintineo, NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) researcher, noted that the GOES-R series provides observations even in situations where radar coverage is inadequate and provides strong pre-radar signals such as storm strengthening or weakening.

The data provided by GOES-R series satellites has provided significant improvements in many areas such as severe storms, heavy rains and flood warnings. Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS), noted that GOES data provides hurricane forecasters with critical data such as cloud-top cooling, convective structures, hurricane eye features, upper-end wind speeds and lightning activity.

GOES-R series satellites are equipped with advanced instruments such as the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), offering three times more spectral channels, four times better image quality and five times faster imaging than previous GOES satellites.

The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) stands out as a first-of-its-kind device that can contact the ground and view cloud-to-cloud lightning strikes 24/7.

GOES-U will be similar to the other satellites in this series, but will include improvements to its instruments based on what scientists have learned from the three satellites currently in orbit. What will set GOES-U apart, however, is its Compact Coronagraph (CCOR), a new sensor it will use to monitor weather events outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

The launch of GOES-U will provide a major advance in weather and space weather forecasting. This new satellite will expand the capabilities of NOAA’s weather satellites, allowing us to more accurately and quickly monitor both Earth and space weather events.

A major step forward for future forecasting and environmental monitoring systems, GOES-U represents the latest technological innovations in this field, offering scientists and meteorologists unprecedented data quality and resolution.