21OESS NOAA/NESDIS/GEO Satellite Applications Training and User Engagement

NOAA’s Office of Geostationary Earth Orbit Observations (GEO) provides users of NOAA geostationary satellite data and products with opportunities for a variety of training and user engagement activities. These interactive events are accomplished in collaboration with NOAA’s Cooperative Institutes, the National Weather Service (NWS), and international partners.

The GEO Program Office manages the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R Series (GOES-R) and Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) satellite programs and engages with users through workshops, short courses, webinars, presentations, symposiums, and user engagement events to promote the use of satellite data and products. These engagement activities are developed to provide guidance and training on how users can analyze and utilize a wide variety of satellite data and products for weather, climate, ocean, land and environmental applications, as well as gather information on current data usage and gaps for future user readiness campaigns for GeoXO. Whether an event is virtual, hybrid, or in-person, each agenda is generated by working with partners to understand the goals, training needs, and content relevant to the users’ region.

Over the past four years, satellite application training opportunities have been attended by over 1,000 users in more than 50 countries, including every World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Regional Association (RA). Two recent training workshops offered both satellite applications and a deep dive analysis of models, predictions, hands-on exercises, forecasts, outcomes from flooding, etc. One of the international training workshops, hosted by the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology & Hydrology (CIMH) and Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO) in WMO RA IV focused specifically on Tropical Storm Philippe, one of the most challenging storms to forecast for in terms of both track and intensity. Specific workshop topics included storm diagnostics, storm tracking, and intensity modeling, QPF rainfall forecasting, use of lightning observations in analyzing the storm, impact-based forecast (IBF), flood mapping, and landslide monitoring. Another workshop in WMO RA III, hosted by Paraguay partners, Paraguayan Space Agency (AEP) and the Directorate of Meteorology and Hydrology (DMH), provided a wider satellite application approach. Training topics for the workshop included nowcasting, aviation and fog events, detection and characterization of fire and smoke, severe weather events, and rainfall and flood products.

Another opportunity for user engagement is the GeoXO symposium series. These symposiums focus on user applications across the atmosphere, land, and ocean, and include presentations and stakeholder discussions regarding current and future data access and applications. These user engagement events help GEO better understand users' changing needs and challenges and develop solutions to address emerging environmental issues as the new GeoXO satellite constellation is built and data products are developed.

This presentation will highlight the recent training workshops, current international and domestic collaborations, and user engagement events, as well as future opportunities being planned to close the knowledge gaps, meet our national and international partners' needs, and capacity building.