Usage of the VIIRS and Other Instruments and Other Channels in Disaster Response and Monitoring

In the last several years, next generation of weather satellites, such as GOES-16 and NOAA-20, have operational, providing higher temporal and higher spatial resolution products. In addition, the next generation of United States polar satellites have unique channels, such as the Day Night Band (DNB) as well as other instruments which can provide a variety of measurements that can aid in the monitoring of unfolding disasters as they occur as well as post disaster monitoring. This began in 2013 when the JPSS Program first tested a response to the Galena AK flooding along the Yukon River in May 2013, providing the flood maps derived from the VIIRS instrument to the National Weather Service (NWS) River Forecast Centers (RFCs). This effort began to expand during the extraordinary tropical cyclone season of 2017, where the VIIRS Flood Map product was provided to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as well as other federal agencies, along with Day Night Band imagery showing the power outages after both Irma and Maria that same year. Since then, JPSS personnel are considered standing members of FEMA’s core of technical experts providing critical products to support their response to such events as tropical cyclones, wildfires, and volcanic eruptions. This has included the support of the JPSS Program in the FEMA-lead National Level Exercise (NLE) 2018, which was a simulated Category 4 hurricane hitting Hampton Roads VA, where simulated products were provided to help exercise various parts of the simulated response.

Along with the response on the federal level the JPSS Program has critical to Federal, State, and local agencies as they have responded to natural disasters. In additional, products from the JPSS program have been used internationally via the International Charter, which is effort to make satellite data and products available to countries without their own satellite capability for disaster response.

The JPSS Program has created a new role to assist in coordinate the response these various incidents. This presentation will provide an overview of how JPSS Program has responded to disasters over the years along with how it plans to respond as the products and data become more widely known.