NASA-NOAA Suomi NPP VIIRS satellite sensor: More precise hurricane forecasts

Tropical Storm Flossie imagery in July 2013 from Suomi NPP’s VIIRS Day-Night band revealing that the storm shifted more to the north, sparing the big island of Hawaii from a direct hit, but bringing the islands of Oahu, Molokai and Maui into a tropical storm warning area. 

Credit: NOAA

The ability to use satellites to locate a storm that could evolve into a severe storm or hurricane will likely become more accurate for this year's Atlantic hurricane season beginning June 1.

By then, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA), weather forecasters will be able to further improve the use of sensors aboard the NASA-NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite (Suomi NPP).

U.S. Polar Environmental satellites such as Suomi NPP provide complete global coverage twice daily, while NOAA/NASA Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites offer imagery over a fixed area.

To improve the ability to better find and track hurricanes, NOAA scientists are finding ways to incorporate data from Suomi NPP's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite, VIIRS sensor, that allows observations of Earth's atmosphere and surface during nighttime hours and offers enhanced capability to see through clouds.

VIIRS provides many advances over previous operational imagers and advances compared to its research predecessor, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometers (MODIS) currently operating on NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites.

It is these advances in polar imagery that will give forecasters a new tool to improve their predictions.

Similarly, the radar on board the NASA/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite has the capability to see through and distinguish between precipitating cumulus and the cirrus clouds which TRMM's infrared sensor also detects.

The next-generation of these sensors is set to launch from Japan next month aboard the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite.

The information to track storms comes from satellites surface stations, weather balloons, radar and aircraft.

Most current satellites provide important information during day and night, although observations in the visible part of the spectrum are limited at night.

That is where VIIRS has an advantage. The VIIRS day-night band is sensitive enough to provide storm information even under limited moonlight conditions, a major advancement for storm analysis.

The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) sensor aboard Suomi NPP also provides temperature and water vapour measurements with greater accuracy than similar microwave instruments onboard earlier satellites.

In relatively clear areas away from the storm center and in the eye of intense storms, the Cross-track Infrared Sensor (CrIS), also on Suomi NPP, enhances ATMS temperature and moisture information by providing measurements with even greater vertical and horizontal resolution.

Installation of the CrIS instrument. Credit: Ball Aerospace

UK Met Office to offer Space Weather forecasts

Solar flares and eruptions in the Sun's atmosphere are sources of potentially destructive storms

The UK Meteorological Office is to begin offering daily forecasts about the weather in space.

The 24 hour service will aim to help businesses and government departments by providing early warnings of solar storms that can disrupt satellites, radio communications and power grids.

The first forecast is expected to be available next spring.

The Department for Business will support the scheme with £4.6m of funding over the next three years.

The UK Met Office will aim to develop better ways of predicting space weather in collaboration with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

UK partners involved in the project include the British Geological Survey, Bath University and RAL Space.


Met Office - Space Weather from If...Media on Vimeo.

Solar flares and eruptions in the Sun's atmosphere - known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) - are powerful sources of potentially destructive solar storms.

Mark Gibbs, head of space weather at the Met Office, said: "Space weather is a relatively immature science but understanding is growing rapidly."

He said the Met Office collaboration aimed to "accelerate the development of improved space weather models and prediction systems to make more effective use of space weather data".

Mr Gibbs added: "This investment will enable the Met Office to complete the space weather forecasting capability that it has been developing over the past two years and begin delivering forecasts, warnings and alerts to key sectors to minimise the impact to the technology-based services we all rely on."

MARS MRO Image: North Pole Weather forecasts

In winter a layer of frozen carbon dioxide covers the Martian North Pole. 

Approximately 50 percent of this ice cap falls to the ground as snow. 

This image was taken by NASA's Mars Reconaissance Orbiter (MRO) in 2006. 

Credits: NASA

In the north of the red planet snowfalls occur with great regularity.

Expeditions of Mars rovers into this region could therefore be easily planned.

Snowstorms lashing down at the northern hemisphere of Mars during the icy cold winters may be predicted several weeks in advance, say researchers from the Tohoku University in Sendai (Japan) and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Katlenburg-Lindau (Germany) in their newest publication.

For the first time, the scientists' calculations show a connection between these snowfalls and a special Martian weather phenomenon: fluctuations of pressure, temperature, wind speeds, and directions that in the northern hemisphere propagate in a wave-like manner and occur very regularly.

For missions to the red planet exploring this region with rovers, such weather forecasts would offer the possibility of choosing a route that avoids heavy snow storms.

The Martian polar regions are an icy cold world. Similar to those on Earth they are covered by cohesive ice caps. In winter, when the temperatures drop below -128 degrees Celcius, this layer of ice is mainly supplied by frozen carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The ice caps then cover a region reaching south to about 70 degrees northern latitude. Only in the comparably warm Martian summer the carbon dioxide sublimates revealing the planet's eternal ice: a considerably smaller cap of frozen water.

Dr. Paul Hartogh

"Mars' seasonal ice has two different origins", says Dr. Paul Hartogh from the MPS. "A part of the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere condensates directly on the surface – similar to the way a layer of frost forms on Earth in cold, clear weather. Another part freezes in the atmosphere", he adds.

The tiny ice crystals accumulate into clouds and fall to the ground as snow.

In the new study, the researchers were now for the first time able to establish a connection between the occurrence of such ice clouds and a wave-like weather phenomenon characterized by a periodic change of pressure, temperature, wind speed, and -direction.

"This weather phenomenon on Mars is unique", says Dr. Alexander Medvedev from the MPS. Indeed, these so-called planetary waves can also be found in Earth's meteorology.

However, not only are the oscillations in pressure and temperature in the lower atmosphere much weaker here. They also occur much less regularly and their wave characteristics are much less pronounced.

"In the Martian northern hemisphere between fall and spring these waves can be found with astonishing reliability", the physicist adds. They propagate eastward with a uniform period of five to six days. Close to the surface, waves with higher frequencies can also be observed.