The Satellite Proving Ground at the National Hurricane Center

GOES-R is scheduled for launch in early 2016 and will contain a number of new instruments, including the 16-channel Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) and the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM). The GOES-R Proving Ground was established to provide forecasters with advance looks at GOES-R data and products using proxy information, and to obtain user feedback for the product developers. Eleven GOES-R products were chosen for demonstration at NHC during the climatologically most active part of the 2013 Hurricane Season (1 Aug to 30 Nov). Ten of the 11 were ABI products, comprising the Hurricane Intensity Estimate (HIE), five Red-Green-Blue (RBG) products designed to provide forecasters experience with image combinations, split window (10.8 and 12.0 µm) infrared imagery for tracking low to mid-level dry air, a tropical overshooting tops detection algorithm, two natural color products, and super-rapid scan operations imagery. The eleventh was a combined GLM and ABI product to predict tropical cyclone rapid intensity changes using global model forecasts, ocean analyses, infrared imagery and lightning input. Spinning Enhanced Visible Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) data from Meteosat and the imager from the current GOES were used as proxies for the ABI and the World-Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) was used as a proxy for the GLM. Results from 2013 will be summarized along with plans for a follow-on experiment during the 2014 Hurricane Season. Product evaluations and user feedback from the 2013 demonstration will be summarized. The 2013 Proving Ground was expanded to include products from the recently launched Suomi-NPP mission, with emphasis on the Day-Night band. Additional NPP product demonstrations are planned for 2014.

DISCLAIMER: The views, opinions, and findings in this report are those of the authors and should not be construed as an official NOAA and/or U.S. Government position, policy, or decision.