Satellite Liaison Blog

GOES-14 provided the Storm Prediction Center (SPC) with 1-minute Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R (SRSOR) imagery May 8-25. This gave SPC forecasters an opportunity to use and comment on a capability that will be available with the next generation geostationary satellite system, GOES-R. The GOES-R Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) will be capable of scanning one 1000×1000 km sector every 30 seconds, or two sectors every one minute. For more 1-minute imagery information and examples, please visit the following page:  http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/srsor2014/GOES-14_SRSOR.html

The forecasters at SPC who had the opportunity really valued viewing this high temporal resolution imagery, and were sorry to see it go. Adding to the benefits of this imagery is the fact that the latency of each image is typically 2-4 minutes after the time stamp, something the forecasters value greatly. It seemed as though every day when I would peak into operations, at least one forecaster would have the 1-minute imagery looping on a workstation. I gathered informative, detailed feedback from SPC forecasters regarding features and processes they are able to see in this imagery that are otherwise not evident or more difficult to discern in regular 5-30 minute imagery.

One example of an SPC forecaster using the 1-minute visible imagery in his forecast decision-making came during the early evening hours of May 21. Convection was already ongoing across the western third of Texas by  2200 UTC. However, one of the mesoscale forecasters observed newly developing convection in the Texas panhandle as well as in SW Texas via the rapid updating, 1-minute imagery.This indicated to him that the severe threat would continue over the next couple of hours. The observation was noted in SPC MCD #0647: GOES 14 ONE-MINUTE IMAGERY SHOWS CONTINUED UPDRAFT GENERATION WITHIN A MORE MATURE CLUSTER JUST E OF AMA…AND ADDITIONAL TSTM DEVELOPMENT W OF MAF…SUGGESTIVE OF A CONTINUED SVR HAIL/WIND THREAT FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT 1-2 HRS.

Below is a loop of the 1-minute visible imagery over the region for the hour before this MCD was written (Fig 1), as well as the MCD graphic (Fig 2).

Fig. 1: 2249-2257 UTC GOES-14 1-minute imagery.

Fig. 2: SPC MCD #0647. Full version can be found on the web at: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/md/2014/md0647.html

SPC forecasters have found the 1-min imagery to be quite useful when monitoring mature convective evolution, as is seen in the forecaster comments below:

“Post-storm initiation, the high-resolution data allowed for careful analysis of overshooting and collapsing tops, the character of the storm anvils (ie. health of the storm) and the identification of convectively generated outflows.”

“I found it very useful in… Assessing the trends of convection via evolution of cloud character in the storms themselves (overshooting tops, subjective visual assessment of storm-top divergence and flanking-line development, etc.)”

-Bill Line, SPC/HWT Satellite Liaison