Recent Satellite Observations for New York
High-Resolution Visible Cloud Imagery
Description
This animation is derived from 1 km/pixel visible imagery over the eastern
United States taken from the GOES-8
spacecraft in geostationary orbit. The data are available courtesy
of the National Weather Service
via their NOAAport
data transmission system. The NOAAport system used for this project
was developed by Planetary Data,
Inc. The region corresponding to most of the outer 16 km nest
of the Deep Thunder forecasts is shown. The original 8-bit
imagery (only available during the daytime) is histogram-equalized and
pseudo-color-mapped using a perceptually isomorphic scheme to illustrate
detailed cloud structure (see color legend in the lower right). Each
frame is overlaid with maps of coastlines in black, state and national
boundaries in white, and rivers in blue. In addition, the boundaries
of the 4 km and 1 km nests are indicated in dark yellow. Each image
and overlay are reprojected (i.e., an azimuthal equidistant cartographic
transformation) to minimize geographic distortion in the animation.
Nominally, a new image is provided about every 15 minutes as presented
in this animation. During periods of "severe" weather, the update
rate may be as frequent as every five minutes. The time associated
with each image is shown by the digital clock in the upper left.
During the animation playback some misregistration between the cloud imagery
and the map overlays may be visible. This is due to the fact that
the original image resolution is 1 km, while the navigation of these pixels
to precise geographic locations is only considered accurate to 4 km.
The frames in this animation, in general, will cover the period of recent
Deep Thunder forecasts illustrated at this site.
Instructions
An animation (compressed as an MPEG-1 video) is shown above with about
15 minutes of time between each frame. Depending on your connection
speed and that of your computer, the animation may take a few minutes to
load and decompress in your browser. The progress of that process
is shown until it is completed. When it is completed, the animation
will play. There are VCR-like controls under the animation to enable
you to stop playback, play forward or backward, or step through the frames
one at a time. If you are having problems viewing or
interacting with this animation, make sure your browser has Java and Javascript
enabled. If you are still having difficulty, you can download
the mpeg file directly.
More Visualizations of
the Current Forecast
Learn More about These Forecasts
Learn
More about Deep Thunder
Learn
More about how Deep Thunder Visualizes the Data Generated by the
Weather Model
Current Weather
Information and Predictions for New York City (from the National Weather
Service)
Current Model Results from the National
Weather Service
Recent High-Resolution Local Radar Observations
Evaluation of Recent Forecasts
