Lessons Learned in the First Year of Delivering GOES-16 Imagery to the Public

NOAA/NESDIS/STAR's GOES East imagery site went live on 19 December 2017. The site initially produced Full Disk, CONUS, Mesoscale, and a basic set of US regional sector resolutions in GeoColor and 16 channels. The images are produced in near real-time, and Mesoscale images have latency as short as 1 minute from capture to display on the webpage. We added Caribbean sectors in January. Since launch, the site has logged 29 million page views and over a billion image downloads. We anticipate delivering GOES-17 images from this site starting Fall 2018, which will only increase traffic and the site's visibility. Storm tracking capability will also be delivered before the end of the 2018 hurricane season.

In this presentation, we will review the site's functionality, features added since launch, and detail our experience operating this site, discussing technical aspects and reviewing site usage information. We will also discuss challenges we have faced in terms of user outreach, education, and communicating across NOAA organizations to maximize value to our internal as well as external users. This site faced particular challenges delivering images to both the weather professional and general public user communities. To satellite professionals, GOES-East was a technical triumph that was faster and better in nearly every way; to the general public users of GOES-13 web pages and products, it was a baffling disruption to their accustomed methods and locations for accessing weather information. We will then discuss plans to improve the automation, stability, and usability of the site and the image stream going forward.