On 03/17/17, Mr. Clayton Johnson of Jamaica’s meteorological service and alumnus of the WPC International Desks, contacted Mike Davison for a threat assessment.  The forecasters at both offices noted a band of training showers and thunderstorms stretching from Jamaica to the southwest portion of Haiti.

“The GOES-16 higher temporal and spatial resolution allowed our forecasters in the Tropical Desks to issue a higher confidence forecast while supplementing data from our operational weather models and lower resolution GOES-13 imagery”.  The current position of GOES-16 at 89.5 W offers an ideal location to monitor convection in the northern portion of the Caribbean using the CONUS domain.  With imagery available every 5 minutes, it is now possible for forecasters in this region to look at satellite updates as forecasters in the U.S. look at radar.

This information was quickly relayed to Clayton Johnson in Jamaica, and he was able to issue timely flash floods warnings for the NE Parishes of Portland and Saint Mary.

GOES-16 0.64 um visible animation shows showers and some storms between the southwest tip of Haiti and northeast Jamaica on 03/17/17. (Preliminary, Non-Operational data )

Note:  The black spots are reflectance values that have been exceeded during the midday hours and is a known problem.  Engineers are working on a fix.

GOES-16 10.3 um “clean window” infrared animation of the same event on 03/17/17. (Preliminary, Non-Operational data)

Thank you for reading!

Michael Folmer & Mike Davison

“The GOES-16 data posted on this page are preliminary, non-operational data and are undergoing testing. Users bear all responsibility for inspecting the data prior to use and for the manner in which the data are utilized.”