Using 1-Minute Imagery from GOES-14 to Help Identify and Forecast High Impact Weather in the Carolinas

Gesostationary Operational Environmental Satellite series R (GOES-R) and its associated Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) are currently scheduled to be launched in 2016. Once the spacecraft and its instruments undergo appropriate calibration and validation (cal/val), weather forecasters and other atmospheric and ocean scientists will have access to geostationary satellite imagery at three times the spectral frequency, four times the spatial frequency, and up to five times the temporal frequency of previous geostationary satellites that cover the United States (Schmit et al. 2005). In order to aid user readiness for the new temporal frequency of the data, GOES-14 was placed into Super Rapid Scan Operations for GOES-R (SRSOR) several times over the past few years. This allowed forecasters, including those at National Weather Service (NWS) forecast offices to view one-minute data from GOES-14 for special situations.

This presentation will look at three such GOES-14 SRSOR periods over the Carolinas, which coincided with different types of high imapct, convective related events during the springs of 2014 and 2015. More specifically, a severe hail event, a tornado and high wind event, and a flash flood event will be examined in detail. The use of the one-minute data for both pre-event situational awareness and real-time decision making will be shown. Both advantages and caveats of the one-minute geostationary data will be discussed, including its use with other data sources (i.e. WSR-88D radar). Additionally, suggestions on how the future high temporal resolution imagery from the GOES-R ABI may be used in convectively active operational forecast and warning situations will be presented.

Timothy J. Schmit, Mathew M. Gunshor, W. Paul Menzel, James J. Gurka, Jun Li, and A. Scott Bachmeier, 2005: INTRODUCING THE NEXT-GENERATION ADVANCED BASELINE IMAGER ON GOES-R. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 86, 1079–1096.