GOES-R Satellite Series: Mesoscale Domain Sector Request Process and Early Results

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R series (GOES-R) represents a tremendous leap forward in capabilities for the entire portfolio of GOES science products. GOES-R will provide enhanced spectral, temporal, and spatial information, along with the deployment of a new system: the Geostationary Lightning Mapper. The GOES-R Product Readiness and Operations (PRO) team has been tasked to work with our partners at the National Weather Service (NWS) and within the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) to ensure the GOES-R products are ready for operations and the user community is ready to receive, disseminate, and use the products to serve their needs and requirements.

One new operational capability of the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) that will revolutionize short-term forecasting is the Flex Mode scanning strategy. In Flex Mode scanning, full disk imagery is produced every fifteen minutes, Contiguous United States imagery every five minutes, and mesoscale domain sectors (MDS) every thirty or sixty seconds. Due to the demand of the high-temporal imagery, the PRO team worked with many partners in the NWS, NESDIS, and within the GOES-R Ground Segment to develop a comprehensive process for determining how MDS will be efficiently implemented in real time for the user community; including academia, research interests, and international partners. This presentation will explain the reasoning behind the MDS request process, how it has been introduced to the user community, and will show how a MDS can be requested. In addition, examples of the high-temporal satellite imagery that highlight mesoscale processes such as convection, gravity waves and turbulence, orographic flows and precipitation, and extratropical cyclones will demonstrate the importance of the GOES-R imagery to mesoscale process research moving forward.