Weather satellite loop broken
Posted by Bret B  on October 21, 2014, 11:22 am
187.148.142.164
Just a heads-up for anyone who uses the GOES infrared satellite loops: they might seem like they are working, but they are showing old data from yesterday.
For example, go to http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/west/epac/flash-avn.html and look at the date/time just below the satellite image. The time of each of the frames is shown, with the latest frame labeled "Oct 20 14 22:00 UTC". At the time I'm writing this, this should read about "Oct 21 14 15:30 UTC".
I've scoured all around on the NOAA site and all their data is from yesterday. GOES-West, GOES-East, even Daniel's nifty Java-based East-West composite loop. I found a very cryptic status note on their site that said something about losing a network connection yesterday on the 20th, but no news oriented to the general public.
Also, forcing a data refresh using either the browser or the refresh button in the loop doesn't help.
I'll try to let you know when the loop is "real, not Memorex" again...
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-----------------------------Re: Weather satellite loop broken
Posted by deanna on October 21, 2014, 3:26 pm, in reply to "Weather satellite loop broken"
187.155.112.98|
Just checked weather on CNA (http://smn.cna.gob.mx/) and GOES East seems up to date. You can view all of Mexico by clicking on each section. Horrible to imagine a world without weather satelites, isn't it? That storm in the gulf has brought Merida almost a full week of rain. We're pretty waterlogged down here but tempertures are much lower and its (almost) starting to feel like winter.
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-----------------------------Weather satellite views working on Mexican CONAGUA site
Posted by Bret B on October 21, 2014, 6:32 pm, in reply to "Re: Weather satellite loop broken"
187.148.142.164
Hey Deanna, thanks! Way to think outside the box. I never thought to check the Mexican weather site for US-generated satellite data, but these do seem to be current data!
(By the way, for all of you more recent La Manz weather readers, Deanna was our previous weather person. She started reporting on our weather and logging the data back in 2004. When she and Darwin moved to Merida in 2011, I stepped in to try to fill her shoes. She's the main reason we have a 10-year period of climate data, just long enough to show believable and interesting trends.)
So in case the NOAA problem persists, and to have a few more satellite views to choose from in the future, I checked out all the different views that the Mexican site creates from the raw GOES infrared data.
Their views from the GOES-West satellite (aka GOES-15) aren't very good (very small, low-resolution, not many animated loops.) But here they are:
Direct link: http://smn.cna.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=15&Itemid=86
Or if that complicated link ever "rots", just go to their home page ( http://smn.cna.gob.mx/ ) then click on "Imágenes de Satélite" to the right of the default satellite image, then on the right side again under the category "Observando el tiempo", click on "Satélite GOES Oeste" (Oeste = West).
But from the GOES-East bird (aka GOES-13), they offer many more views than even the owners of the satellite (the US NOAA) offer. Direct link to see all the views to choose from: http://smn.cna.gob.mx/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10&Itemid=17
Or if that complicated link ever "rots", just go to their home page ( http://smn.cna.gob.mx/ ) then click on "Imágenes de Satélite", and you're already there looking at all the views of the GOES-East bird.
Here are the best GOES-East views in my opinion:
Large, fixed (non-loop) overview of all of Mexico, color-coded by cloutop altitudes (similar to the AVN (aviation) colors in our old-favorite loop from NOAA): http://smn.cna.gob.mx/satelite/goesE/ptopes/ge_top_mx_ir.jpg
A smallish loop of central Mexico, using the AVN colors based on cloud-top temperatures. La Manz is in the far left area: http://smn.cna.gob.mx/satelite/goesE/centro/loop.gif
Another smallish loop using the AVN colors, zoomed in on just west-central Mexico (i.e. Nayarit, Jalisco, Colima, part of Michoacán.) This one is centered almost exactly on La Manz! To be fair, the NOAA loop can be zoomed in just like this using the spiffy controls in their Flash animation, but this Mexican loop shows the state boundaries to quickly orient youself: http://smn.cna.gob.mx/satelite/goesE/co/loop.gif
Keep in mind that if you leave any of these views open all the time, you will have to manually refresh your browser window to get any of these updated with the latest data. The Mexican site says these are updated every 15 minutes. (The US NOAA loops auto-update.)
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