Research to Operations Activities using Products from Polar Orbiting Satellites

Polar orbiters lack the high temporal resolution that the geostationary satellites do. However, they do offer higher spatial resolution, while allow the forecaster to see details of features not seen in geostationary satellites. By utilizing instruments on board the NOAA Polar Operational Environmental Satellites (POES) and NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) satellites, Terra and Aqua, one-kilometer imagery and products can be offered in near real-time to National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs). The low time latency from the satellite overpass using the NOAA High Rate Picture Transmission (HRPT) and NASA Direct Readout systems have made this effort a quick, viable alternative to operational transmission of new, experimental satellite data. In addition, the higher resolution data can help prepare forecasters for new products that will become available in the GOES-R era.

Approximately 50 WFOs currently part of an effort led by the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) to find use for imagery and products from polar-orbiting satellites in operations. This presentation introduces the path of polar-orbiting satellite data from reception to product generation to operations, and shows ways in which polar-orbiting satellite imagery and products generated and developed at CIMSS in this fashion are applied in an operational environment at the NWS immediately upon receipt.