"Wow, I've never seen anything quite like it": How Satellite Imagery Can Immediately Hook an Audience

An important part of telling a gripping story is quickly grabbing your audience’s attention. In weather and climate, satellite imagery can frequently offer the most stunning and compelling visuals. Whether it’s a high-resolution view of a landfalling hurricane or a month-long time-lapse of prolonged wildfire activity, these visuals can immediately captivate an audience, bringing them along for the entire weather story. This presentation will highlight examples of stories that use satellite imagery in this way as extremely effective hooks. The focus will be examples from various digital platforms, including web articles and social media. This presentation will showcase tools that the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere has created to access this imagery.