Satellite Liaison Blog

On November 30 at 1430 UTC, GOES-16 began it’s drift from the checkout position at 89.3W to the GOES-East position at 75.2W. Starting around 1330 UTC, the ABI, EXIS, GLM, SUVI, SEISS instruments have been placed in safe or diagnostic modes with no data capture or distribution. The satellite will drift east at 1.41°/day until it arrives at it’s new position on December 11. Data collection and distribution will resume sometime between December 14-20. At that time, GOES-16 will officially become GOES-East. GOES-16 ABI imagery will no longer require the “preliminary, non-operational data” tag! GOES-13 (current GOES-East) will drift to 60W during the period of January 2-22. The final GOES-16 full disk images from the checkout position are below (Fig 1). For more detailed information on the drift plan, visit: http://www.goes-r.gov/users/transitiontToOperations.html.

Figure 1: 30 November 2017 GOES-16 6.2 um Water Vapor Imagery, 15-min full disk. Full res

After GOES-16 comes back online, the data will then be available in the “East Full Disk/CONUS/Mesoscale” AWIPS menus (instead of “Center” menus). Additionally, the GOES-East portion of the blended GOES East/West imagery products (located at the top of the “Satellite” menu in AWIPS) will be missing once GOES-13 moves in January. Procedures will need to be updated to account for these changes.

-Bill Line, NWS

“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.”