Short-term Prediction Research
and Transition Center

EOS Imagery and Products for NWS Forecast Offices
Real-time MODIS and AMSR-E Level 1B imagery and Level 2 products from the Terra and Aqua Earth Observing System satellites are available from a number of direct broadcast ground stations throughout the world. The SPoRT program obtains this data from the University of Wisconsin (UW) and the University of South Florida 's (USF) direct broadcast stations and provides imagery and selected products to several NWS Forecast Offices. The data and products provided to each office vary based on their needs and forecast problems. SPoRT is currently working to provide the Southern Region (SR) Headquarters office with a suite of SPoRT products for dissemination to all 32 WFOs in the region. Typical products provided to the WFOs include high resolution MODIS imagery and color composites, atmospheric parameters such as TPW, cloud and stability information, and surface parameters such as LST and SST. AMSR-E products include rain rate and convective fraction, TPW and selected ocean parameters.

In addition to the products sent to the various NWS offices, several other EOS products are viewed or generated by SPoRT in real-time. MODIS SST fields provided by the USF with the EOS science team algorithm is also used to generate composite sea surface temperature products. The compositing procedure eliminates clouds not detected by the cloud mask and maintains the accuracy of the real SSTs. These products are used in various assimilation studies and sent to several WFOs. Ocean color composites are also generated.

CIRA Blended TPW Products
NWS offices near coastal regions or along the southern border of the U.S. are often limited in monitoring upstream weather conditions because of the lack of observations. A AMSU/SSMI/GPS combined TPW and anomaly product provided by CIRA (http://amsu.cira.colostate.edu/gpstpw/) is made available to these offices to monitor moisture changes in the upstream weather patterns. 6-hourly product fields are made available to these WFOs for animation in AWIPS TPW.

GOES Imagery
GOES real-time satellite data from east and west NOAA geostationary satellites is obtained from a roof-top antenna at the NSSTC (with resolutions down to 1km from the Imager and 8km from the Sounder). This data is useful for monitoring developing weather events and has been instrumental in the success of several satellite data assimilation research projects funded by NASA as part of the research and applications programs.

GOES Products
Various products are generated from the GOES Imager and Sounder data in real time. The Imager provides 1km visible and 4km infrared measurements for the derivation of surface insolation, albedo, a difference image for fog detection, and high resolution cloud product information. The 8km Sounder data has the necessary channels to produce land surface temperature and total precipitable water, and detailed cloud information. Additionally, selected NOAA/NESDIS aviation products are obtained and made available to the several SR NWS forecast offices.