Weather Satellite Crash Course

Cody Kirkpatrick
Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana

Contents

1 Weather Satellite Systems 2

2 Types of Satellite Imagery 5

2.1 Visible Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2 Infrared Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.3 Water Vapor Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

3 Application: Cloud Types 10

3.1 The Major Types of Clouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3.2 Determining Cloud Type in Satellite Imagery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

4 Case Study Examples 12

4.1 Colorado Flooding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4.2 Hurricane Katrina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

4.3 Scattered Summer Thunderstorms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

This document is based on Chapter 41 of Weather Basics, by Joseph Balsama and Peter
Chaston, and also Aviation Weather, produced by the FAA. It has been modified by the author
for use in courses at Indiana University. For further information, please contact the author:
codykirk@indiana.edu. Document last updated August 9, 2018.

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 Reading Goals

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Apply the concept of albedo to visible satellite imagery

2. Distinguish among what is shown on visible, infrared, and water vapor images

3. Use visible and infrared images to determine likely cloud type

4. Infer thunderstorm strength using infrared imagery

1. Weather Satellite Systems

There are two types of meteorological satellites: geosynchronous and polar-orbiting. The

geosynchronous satellites are in orbit about 22,300 miles from Earth, over the Equator. At

this altitude, they are able to rotate at exactly the same rate as Earth, about 1000 mph at

the Equator. In this way they always appear to stay fixed over the same ground location.

The current family of geosynchronous satellites is called GOES, which stands for Geo-

stationary Operational Environmental Satellite. Five GOES systems currently exist, cover-

ing the entire globe. The coverage area of the two that cover the United States–positioned

at 75◦ and 135◦ West longitude–is shown in Fig. 1. The two intermediate longitudes are

used for storage of backup satellites, in case one of the two operational satellites should

fail.

Shown in Fig. 2 is a “full disk” infrared image from GOES-West, positioned at 135◦

West longitude. The infrared imagery will be described in more detail below; for now,

just notice the frame of view of the satellite. South America is almost impossible to see, as

is New England and even the Great Lakes. Remember that the satellite’s location is fixed

because it rotates at the same rate Earth does: that makes this particular satellite good

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Figure 1. Longitudes of GOES satellites covering the United States. For more information, visit the GOES
website at http://www.goes-r.gov/mission/history.html.

for viewing clouds and other features in the Western United States, Hawaii, and a vast

majority of the Pacific Ocean, and lousy for Indiana (and completely useless for anywhere

in New England). For Indiana, we use GOES-East.

The GOES satellites have five “channels” that look for radiation on different wave-

lengths. The visible (Channel 1), infrared (Channel 4), and water vapor (Channel 3) im-

ages are described in Fig. 3. Also pay attention to the resolution or quality of each type

of image. Visible imagery has much finer resolution, 1 km on the current GOES satellites,

than other products which means that visible satellite pictures will show much more de-

tail (four or eight times as much!) than other pictures, and we can zoom in farther on them

without the images looking pixelated or “blocky.” The real-world analogy is essentially

that the camera on each channel has more or fewer “megapixels” so its image is more or

less detailed.

In addition to the geostationary satellites, the other family of meteorological satellites

is the polar orbiter series. These satellites are at a much lower altitude, about 1000 miles

out, and are placed in an orbit so that they move north-to-south over the poles as Earth

rotates underneath them. Their cameras allow them to take images in a swath averaging

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Figure 2. GOES-15 (West) Full Disk Infrared Image from 1200 UTC on 8 August 2016. More images available
at http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/.

Figure 3. Characteristics of GOES satellite images. From http://noaasis.noaa.gov/NOAASIS/ml/imager.html.

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some 1500 miles across, creating stripes of data. It can take several days for a polar-

orbiting satellite to compile a full picture of Earth from all these swaths.

2. Types of Satellite Imagery

Weather satellites have sensors that give us different kinds of imagery of the tops of

clouds and, where there are no clouds, the surface of the planet. The main weather satel-

lite image types from GOES are visible, infrared, and water vapor imagery. The images are

transmitted back to ground and can be “enhanced” to produce the many images seen on

websites and on television (more on enhancement below).

2.1 Visible Imagery

Visible pictures are just like pictures taken by an ordinary camera, but are looking down

from space. Visible satellite pictures are available only during the daytime, since they need

reflected light–light in roughly the 0.5 to 0.7 µm wavelength range–to show a picture of a

target.

Whether it is a cloud top, a snow-covered field, the ground, or the ocean–how well a

feature shows up depends on how much of the Sun’s rays it reflects back toward space.

This reflectivity is called albedo. For example, the top of a large thunderstorm will reflect

back about 92% of the sunlight that strikes it; thus its albedo is 0.92. This means it will

appear very bright white on a visible satellite picture.

Large thunderstorm 92% Thin stratus 42%

Fresh new snow 88% Thin cirrostratus 32%
Thick cirrostratus 74% Sand, no foliage 27%
Thick stratocumulus 68% Sand and brushwood 17%
White Sands, NM, USA 60% Confierous forest 12%
Snow, 3-7 days old 59% Water surfaces 9%
Table 1. The albedo, or amount of sunlight reflected back towards space by various targets. The more that
is reflected, the brighter the target will show up on a visible satellite picture.

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 Figure 4. Visible Satellite Image from 2115 UTC (6:15 p.m. EDT), August 25, 2015.

Fresh snow also reflects back a lot of the sunshine striking it, but old snow (say 3 to

7 days old) does not reflect back as much because it is duller and more compacted. A

forest of pine trees or other coniferous forest hardly reflects any sunlight at all; therefore,

forested areas that are not covered by clouds show up dark on a visible picture from

space. Oceans usually appear dark as well, since their albedo is one of the lowest of any

surface type.

2.2 Infrared Imagery

Infrared (heat) imagery senses the temperature of whatever is in the frame of view–the

tops of the clouds or of the ground, water, or ice surface (Fig. 5). The Stefan-Boltzmann

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Figure 5. Infrared Satellite Image from 2115 UTC (6:15 p.m. EDT), August 25, 2015. The scale is given in ◦ C.

Law relates the energy emitted by an object to that object’s temperature.1 The higher an

object’s surface temperature, the more radiation it emits.

Sensors have been developed for the weather satellites to detect the amount of radi-

ation being emitted by the cloud tops or, if no clouds are present, by the Earth’s surface

(the ground, ocean surface, or snow- or ice-covered surfaces). On the current GOES satel-

lites, the infrared sensors listen for radiation at approximately 11 µm–squarely in the “in-

frared” range of radiation wavelengths.2 All these principles are then used to obtain the

temperature of cloud tops. Since temperature normally decreases with height in the atmosphere,

the colder the cloud top temperature, the higher the cloud tops are. For example, for convective
1 The relationship is actually to the fourth power of that object’s temperature: E = σT 4 , where σ is the
Stefan-Boltzmann constant.
2 [Add footnote about wavelengths.]

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or thunderstorm clouds, this enables weather forecasters to assess how strong the storms likely

are, since colder cloud tops imply that updrafts are building the storm’s clouds higher,

producing a taller cloud and thus intensifying the thunderstorm.

All objects are always emitting radiation, even if we can’t see it. Earth is no different,

and the ground continues to radiate energy even at night (this is why it is typical for

temperatures to fall steadily as night passes). As a result, infrared imagery is available

24 hours a day, since the infrared sensors on the satellites are detecting radiation emitted

from the ground or clouds, and this information is then converted to the temperatures.

On an infrared black-and-white image, colder objects appear white and warmer objects

appear black.

Infrared imagery has limitations. Ground targets such as fog and snow-cover do not

show up well because their temperatures may be almost the same as nearby cloud-free

areas. Thus, meteorologists look at both visible and infrared images during the daytime,

and infrared images at night, to identify features. Most of the time, we recolor infrared

imagery so that it is easier to see subtle differences in temperature from place to place (see

Fig. 6).

2.3 Water Vapor Imagery

Water vapor imagery is particularly clever. At the 6.7-µm wavelength, water vapor molecules

in the atmosphere absorb outgoing infrared radiation (heat) emitted by Earth. The molecules

then re-radiate this energy and so satellite sensors can detect how much water vapor is

present by “listening” for radiation just at this wavelength. This might be similar to using

Photoshop to finding only a particular color in a photograph, or looking for just people

wearing a certain color of shirt, and ignoring the others. Satellites do this with wave-

lengths. The sensors tuned to the water vapor wavelength show where water vapor is

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Figure 6. Color-Enhanced Infrared Satellite Image from 2115 UTC (6:15 p.m. EDT), August 25, 2015. The
scale is given in ◦ C. The data in this image is exactly identical to that of the “ordinary,” black-and-white
infrared image above.

present between about 10,000 feet and 30,000 off the ground, whether it is in cloud form or

not!

The more moisture in the depth of atmosphere being sensed, the brighter the area

will appear on the water vapor image (Fig. 7). In the image below from the UCAR web-

site, areas that are relatively dry appear brown or orange, and areas with clouds appear

green/blue/purple. Always remember that water vapor imagery sensing works essen-

tially only for moisture high up in the atmosphere (10,000 to 30,000 feet), not really mois-

ture at the ground. Looking at a water vapor image is analogous to looking at the thick-

ness of water vapor or clouds from the top down. The more of it there is, and/or the

greater its vertical extent, the thicker it will appear. Always check the color scale, though,

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Figure 7. Water Vapor Satellite Image from 2115 UTC (6:15 p.m. EDT), August 25, 2015. What differences
do you see between this image and the Infrared and Visible images from earlier?

as different “enhancement curves” may be used. Some websites even just use black and

white for their water vapor images, which can be very confusing!

3. Application: Cloud Types

3.1 The Major Types of Clouds

The forms and varieties of clouds are numerous enough to fill a textbook with illustrations

and descriptions of each type. The 10 basic types, shown in Fig. 8, are the basis for our

entire naming structure. For our class, we are interested in understanding how clouds de-

velop – and this has direct implications for their names. Clouds formed by risign currents

of unstable air are cumulus; they are characterized by their lumpy, billowy appearance.

Clouds that form in layers, often with stable air, are stratus; they are characterized by

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Figure 8. Names and general appearance of the ten major cloud types. Creative Commons License, from
https://commons.wikimedia.org/

their uniform, sheet-like appearance. Wispy, high-level clouds composed entirely of ice

crystals (no liquid water) are known as cirrus.

In addition to the above, the prefix nimbo- or the suffix -nimbus is given to a cloud

when precipitation is falling from it. Thus, stratified clouds from which rain is falling are

nimbostratus. A heavy, swelling cumulus-type cloud which produces precipitation is a

cumulonimbus. This prefix or suffix applies no matter what type of precipitation is falling:

rain, snow, or something else.

3.2 Determining Cloud Type in Satellite Imagery

Many of the “cloud classification schemes” you may read about if you search on the in-

ternet – specifically the ones that classify clouds as “low, middle, or high” – do so using

the height of the cloud base. To determine cloud types from satellite imagery, however,

we are more interested in the height of the cloud top. Since atmospheric temperatures de-

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crease with increasing altitude, the temperature of a cloud’s top should be directly correlated

with its altitude. If we can couple this information and the camera-like data provided from

a visible image, we can identify cloud types with surprising accuracy.

It might be possible to develop a system to identify all 10 cloud types from Fig. 8, but

let’s not go that far. A simple system to determine cloud types might only consider four

possibilities: clear skies; stratus; cumulonimbus; and cirrus clouds. Now, we need to ask

two questions. For that case, would the visible image appear bright white, or dark gray/black?

And, for that case, would the infrared image indicate cold temperatures, or warm temperatures?

If we keep the questions to one-or-the-other answers, we can pretty quickly determine

which of these four possibilities we have.

Here is an example. Look ahead to Fig. 11, and look at the area near Oklahoma City.

The visible image depicts very dark gray or black, indicating low albedo (Table 1) and

thus a lack of clouds. The infrared image (Fig. 12) over the same area shows up very

warm (in excess of 40◦ C; ouch!), so whatever very warm thing is present there must be

very close to the ground. In fact, because of the lack of any features from the visible

image, we should conclude that the skies are clear in Oklahoma City at this time. As a

second example, consider what the answers would be for a tall cumulonimbus cloud, i.e.,

a thunderstorm. On visible: bright white, or dark gray? On infrared: very warm, or very

cold? Hint: see Fig. 10.

4. Case Study Examples

4.1 Colorado Flooding

In mid-September 2013, several days of heavy rainfall occurred over mountainous areas

of northern Colorado. Over a foot of rainfall fell in some locations with bare rocky ground,

meaning that none of the water could infiltrate into the ground–it all drained into streams

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Figure 9. Image Retrieved from http://coflood2013.colostate.edu/satellite.html and provided by CIMSS.

and rivers. Eventually, much of that water made its way into the South Platte River, which

flows east from northern Colorado into Nebraska. (Fig. 9) is a visible satellite image taken

a couple days after this multi-day rain event ended.

1. Why does the South Platte River show up with such a dark color compared to the

surrounding land?

2. Look at the area in eastern Colorado that is south of the “Leading edge of flood

water” label. Are the lighter areas more likely forest or open grassland? Are the

spotted dark areas more likely grassland/prairie or patches of trees?

3. What do you think is going on in the western third of the image, over the Rocky

Mountains?

4.2 Hurricane Katrina

One of the worst natural disasters in the US in modern times, Katrina caused over 1200

fatalities (maybe as many as 1800) and left much of New Orleans in ruin. In Fig. 10, we see

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 Figure 10. Infrared Image of Hurricane Katrina. 1445 UTC 28 August 2005.

an infrared satellite image of the storm at its strongest, about 36 hours before the center

made landfall in coastal Louisiana.

1. What are the coldest cloud top temperatures you can identify in the Central Dense

Overcast (CDO), the main circular cloud region, of Katrina?

2. What is the warmest temperature you can identify in the eye?

3. Do you believe the eye of Katrina is cloud-free at this time? Based on what evidence?

4.3 Scattered Summer Thunderstorms

The afternoon of 25 August 2015 was a typical one across Texas and surrounding areas,

with thunderstorms forming in the afternoon. Below are visible (Fig. 11), enhanced in-

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frared (Fig. 12), and water vapor (Fig. 14) images from the Southern Great Plains of the

United States on the afternoon of 25 August 2015.

1. You may have to zoom in on the images in the PDF file, but can you see that the

visible image is of a finer resolution than the infrared and water vapor? That is, can

you see that it offers finer detail than the other two? Hint: look at the details in

clouds east and northeast of Roswell, New Mexico.

2. Using these images, where are the strongest thunderstorms occurring at this time?

How do you know?

3. Are there any locations with lots of water vapor in the atmosphere, but no clouds?

4. In the infrared image, why do you think southern Texas (between Brownsville and

Del Rio) is a dark blue or even black color, while the adjacent Gulf of Mexico east

of Brownsville is clearly blue? What does this mean? (Hint: remember, it is late

August.)

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Figure 11. Visible image from 2200 UTC 25 August 2015.

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 Figure 12. Infrared image from 2200 UTC 25 August 2015.

Figure 13. Color scale for use with the infrared image in Fig. 12.

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Figure 14. Water vapor image from 2200 UTC 25 August 2015.

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