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International Satellite Imagery Help
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| Part I - Mission Connection |
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In accordance with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the World Area Forecast System (WAFS) of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), high level significant weather (SIGWX) forecasts are provided by the AWC for the en-route portion of international flights. The AWC provides a suite of SIGWX forecast products for the World Area Forecast Center (WAFC) in Washington, D.C. These products are used directly by airline dispatchers for flight planning and weather briefing before departure, and by flight crew members during flight. These products are generated in sectors defined by the ICAO. As part of the preparation of these forecasts the AWC forecasters utilized satellite image mosaics. The infrared satellite mosaics used by the AWC forecasters have been made into web displayable images. The projection and extent of the satellite images corresponds directly to the projections of the AWC high level SIGWX forecasts. The intent of these satellite images is to allow the users of the AWC international products to better utilize the forecast information through a shared situational awareness of the current conditions in different parts of the world. The satellite data contained in these images has the same values and time as other operational satellite web sites, such as NESDIS, but these images have been remapped and combined into a mosaic to make their information content easier to relate to aviation forecast products. |
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Comments and suggestions on these products will be gathered by e-mail to the AWC webmaster at ncep.awc.avwx@noaa.gov. |
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| Part II - Technical Description |
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These satellite images are infrared product from the 11 micron channel of the geostationary and polar satellites from the GOES-east, GOES-west, GMS, Meteosat satellites, NOAA-15, NOAA-16, and NOAA-17. The NOAA satellites fill in information in the polar regions and the geostationary satellites are used elsewhere. Where there is an overlap between satellite coverage, the most timely satellite data is utilized for that region. The infrared channel shows the temperature of the cloud. The higher clouds are colder and show up as white in the black and white images or green and blue in the colored images. Where there are no clouds the satellite shows the ground temperature with black being warmer or red in the colored images. The satellite sectors are in JPEG file format which can be viewed by most web browsers. The global mosaics are generated every 30 minutes. The sectors containing data from the Meteosat satellites are restricted to 6 hourly coverage by agreement with the original producers of those satellite data. Further information on weather satellites and available images can be obtained from NESDIS at
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/ |
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weather.gov 
