NWS Satellite Program  

• 1999 NWS Field Assessment of GOES Sounder Products: Final Report in PDF
• 1999 NWS Field Assessment of GOES Sounder Products: in HTML and PDF: 
  Includes graphical summary and case studies (viewgraphs) 
  

  Files in Portable Document Format (pdf) require the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Real-time satellite cloud imagery and atmospheric sounding data from the geostationary meteorological satellites continues to be a major data source for tropical storms, severe weather, flood warnings, and short-range forecasts. NOAA's challenge is to develop new satellite products and services and to speed communication of this data to NWS forecast offices and other users. GOES-8, the first in a series of a new generation of geostationary satellite, was launched in April 1994. This new series of GOES has separate instrumentation to allow simultaneous observations from a 5-channel imager and a 19-channel sounder. GOES technology also provides visible and infrared imagery data updates as frequently as every 1 minute during severe weather warning situations over selected areas of the United States. A major goal for the NWS in the next two years is to get GOES sounder data into AWIPS, thus making this critical data source operationally available to NWS forecast offices and National Centers. 

• Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite: Databook 
• Illustrated Mission Overview: GOES: less technical version for grades K-12

The GOES Assessment evaluates the performance of the GOES-E/W satellites. It also evaluates the ability of the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS) to deliver products and to determine improvements and modifications for future satellite instruments.

• 1998 GOES Assessment Meeting Summary (pdf)
• NWS Initial GOES Assessment Report: 1998
• NOAA GOES-8/9 ASSESSMENT PLAN: 1997 in pdf

Acquiring data from POES and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) includes placing  imagery and sounder data into numerical models. POES sites are located at the Storm Prediction Center, the Tropical Prediction Center, the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, and NWS Forecast Offices at Anchorage and Honolulu. The declining cost of satellite acquisition technology makes the polar combining NOAA and Department of Defense satellite requirements onto one polar platform an attractive cost saving alternative. The converged system is known as the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). OM is part of the team responsible for developing and updating a requirements document for NPOESS. The first NPOESS is scheduled for launch in the 2008. The top priority for these requirements is to increase data resolution to make it compatible with more complex numerical models and rapidly developing computer technologies.

• NOAA Satellite Information System (NOAASIS)
• National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS)
• Images of hurricanes and other storms from NCDC
• Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS)
• Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA)
• The GOES Project
• NASA Hot Topics
• NASA Remote Sensing Data Projects
• NWS Spaceflight Meteorology Group
• World Meteorological Organization/Satellite Home Page
• NRL/Monterey
• Welcome to the NOAA Central Library on the Internet!

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