It’s Dusty Out There: New Satellite Products to Monitor the Saharan Air Layer

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – R-Series (GOES-R) and Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Proving Ground (PG) Programs were conceived to demonstrate and familiarize forecasters with the next generation geostationary and polar-orbiting satellite products and capabilities that will be incorporated into National Weather Service operations. Over the last decade, evaluations were (proxy) product-driven, but with new GOES-16, Suomi-National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) Satellite, and soon, NOAA-20 imagery becoming available to forecast operations, the Satellite PG for Marine, Precipitation, and Satellite Analysis (MPS) has taken a different approach by focusing the 2018 evaluations on forecast challenges. The Saharan Air Layer (SAL) is the first challenge to be evaluated as it affects air quality, visibility, convective initiation/maintenance, severe weather, and tropical cyclone development. The participants range from the Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch of the National Hurricane Center, the International Desk at the Weather Prediction Center, the Ruskin Weather Forecast Office (WFO), Melbourne WFO, Miami WFO, Key West WFO, San Juan WFO, and the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology in Barbados.

Various GOES-R and JPSS products were assessed by the forecasters in real-time with feedback gathered through a feedback form, weekly phone calls, emails, text products produced by the offices, and an end of evaluation survey. Some of the products evaluated include the GOES-16 Aerosol Optical Depth, Aerosol Detection, Dust RGB, SAL Split-Window Difference, GeoColor imagery, CIRA Layered Precipitable Water, and Geostationary Lightning Mapper imagery among others. This presentation will highlight some of the product performance in this very dusty Atlantic hurricane season along with some of the forecasters feedback and future steps.