Since 1995, The National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) has produced, on a operational basis every hour, a variety of retrieved atmospheric and surface quantities from GOES sounder measurements taken from the GOES-E and GOES-W satellites. Specifically, the sounder products generated include: clear-sky radiances, precipitable water (TPW), temperature, surface skin temperature, cloud-top information (pressure, temperature, and amount), and atmospheric stability indices including lifted index and Convective Available Potential Energy (CAPE). The resolution of the operational GOES sounder products is approximately 50km x 50km, with the exception of the cloud product which are generated at full resolution. The products are provided in a variety of formats including BUFR and image format. The precipitable water and clear-sky radiance products are assimilated into the operational numerical weather prediction models (NWP) run by the National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP)/Environmental Modeling Center (EMC). In October 2002, the GOES sounder retrieved products have been added to the National Weather Service (NWS) Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS).

The 50km x 50km resolution GOES sounder products (radiances, PW, and derived product imagery of PW, LI, skin temperature, cloud-top) continue to serve the needs of the user community. However, the advent of higher resolution NWP models and the need for higher resolution satellite products on AWIPS have led to new requirements for higher resolution GOES sounder products. This paper will highlight the work done in the Office of Research and Applications (ORA) to provide GOES sounder retrieved products at full resolution. Over the past couple of years, ORA has been generating and validating single-field-of-view (SFOV) GOES sounder retrievals and derived product imagery (DPI) of such retrievals. Attention has been given not only to the quality of the products, but also to their timeliness. Participation is the International H2O Project (IHOP) field experiment that took place over the Southern Great Plains of the United States from 13 May to 25 June 2002 provided us an opportunity to demonstrate that these products could be produced with reduced latency. Validation results of the SFOV GOES retrieval PW products will be presented. Furthermore, examples will be shown to illustrate that these higher resolution products offer better coverage and improved depiction of gradient information than the current lower resolution operational products.

The updated SFOV GOES sounder product system is more streamlined, consolidates the existing operational GOES sounder product production systems, is more flexible and easier to maintain. Plans call for this updated GOES sounder product system system to replace the existing operational GOES product system in late 2003 or early 2004.