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from the 3d-4k-curved-screen-with-built-in-tivo dept.
https://phys.org/news/2017-01-goes-satellite-images-earth.html
Since the GOES-16 satellite lifted off from Cape Canaveral on November 19, scientists, meteorologists and ordinary weather enthusiasts have anxiously waited for the first photos from NOAA's newest weather satellite, GOES-16, formerly GOES-R.
The release of the first images today is the latest step in a new age of weather satellites. It will be like high-definition from the heavens.
The pictures from its Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) instrument, built by Harris Corporation, show a full-disc view of the Western Hemisphere in high detail—at four times the image resolution of existing GOES spacecraft. The higher resolution will allow forecasters to pinpoint the location of severe weather with greater accuracy. GOES-16 can provide a full image of Earth every 15 minutes and one of the continental U.S. every five minutes, and scans the Earth at five times the speed of NOAA's current GOES imagers.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday January 25 2017, @11:16PM
> I've certainly not noticed great improvement in any forecasts in the last 3 decades
You certainly haven't paid attention then. Or you live in a microclimate behind a mountain.
5 to 7 days forecasts are now surprisingly accurate, and not just "it will be dry in Tucson". The three sets of storms which just hit CA were predicted with impressive accuracy in both time and amount of rain. Most hurricanes fall near the center the path predicted by the 5-day forecast. They already did twelve years ago, as two days before Katrina I saw a forecast giving a high probability of landfall just where it did, gladly wrong by 1 on the intensity scale, but still with a clear warning about NO flooding (Chicago was getting better Katrina forecasts than D.C., apparently).
Sure, the models can't accurately predict the exact paths of storm cells, or oddly the effect of Lake Michigan on the snow accumulation, but we're really much better off than 30 years ago, and websites allow us to get good local numbers, instead of guessing from what the TV lady said about a metropolis 50 miles away.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday January 25 2017, @11:41PM
However, I actually base my opinion on the fact that different weather agencies around the globe are still "predicting" wildly different weather from each other for only hours in the future which of course often also wildly contradict what I can see from my window.
In summary - weather forecasts have yet to reach the accuracy of election polls.
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