Communicating New Satellite Technologies through the Use of Blogs

The arrival of GOES-16 data has provided a generational advance in satellite technology to meteorologists. A particular challenge is describing the enhancements in the data that are available and demonstrating how they can be used to better observe and understand atmospheric phenomena. The Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) is well-positioned to help with that goal, because its long-established CIMSS Satellite Blog has been used for more than a decade to document a wide variety of meteorological events in terms of satellite operations, data and algorithms. This presentation will describe some of the individual blog posts that have detailed how GOES-16 operations are different from legacy GOES satellites, and how those enhancements can help with the analysis and forecasting of weather events. In particular, the goal is to emphasize how blogs can help to effectively communicate the many changes and improvements that are available with GOES-16 and with the pending launch of GOES-S.