March News

Updated March 18, 2024

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Recent Updates

 

NOAA-20 Orbit Maneuver

On March 20, NOAA-21 will become the primary satellite in the JPSS constellation. At that time NOAA-20 will become the secondary satellite and its orbit will be rephased to be diametrically opposite NOAA-21.

The orbit drift maneuver is expected to last 15 days, until April 4. All NOAA-20 instruments will experience brief outages during the orbit lowering and raising just before and after the drift; however all NOAA-20 science data and geolocation will remain valid during the drift period, and will be disseminated as normal via Direct Broadcast and NESDIS systems. Nonetheless users should exercise caution when using NOAA-20 VIIRS imagery, NUCAPS soundings, Flood Maps, etc. during the drift.

 

NUCAPS from Metop-C Now Available

NUCAPS atmospheric soundings from the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) aboard the European Metop-C satellite became available in AWIPS via SBN on March 11, 2024, at 12:44Z. See SCN24-14 for details. Metop-C NUCAPS soundings, from mid-morning overpasses, complement NOAA-20's early-afternoon NUCAPS soundings, helping to characterize each day's pre-convective environment.

This spring, additional NUCAPS soundings from the NOAA-21 satellite will become available to AWIPS via the SBN. We will post a Service Change Notice once their release date is firm.

Image caption: Overlay of Metop-C NUCAPS with NOAA-20 NUCAPS on Mar 11, 12:44Z.

 

CIRA GeoColor & 5-minute GLM Flash Counts

Effective Monday March 18, NWS Central Region will no longer distribute CIRA GeoColor imagery nor 5-minute flash counts from the GOES-R Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) via LDM. Most (126+) NWS AWIPS sites have installed TOWR-S RPM v24 and the new AWIPS Pre-Processor (APP), which can compute these products at each site. Therefore, sites with TOWR-S RPM v24 and the APP installed will not see disruption of these data products.

 

Himawari-9 Rain Rate Coming to Pacific Region

The TOWR-S team has been working with NESDIS to provide several Himawari-9 L2 derived products to the Pacific Region via LDM - including Derived Motion Winds; Sea Surface Temperature; and Cloud Height, Pressure, Temperature, Phase, Mask, and Optical Depth. The final product to become available to Pacific Region AWIPS sites will be Rain Rate / Quantitative Precipitation Estimate, on or shortly after March 27, 2024. More information is available via OSPO.

 

GOES-West Fog & Low Stratus Product for Alaska Now Available

TOWR-S worked with NESDIS to develop a new Fog & Low Stratus product, derived from GOES-West observations, covering the Alaska sector. NESDIS made this product available as of March 14; NCF is now sending it to Alaska AWIPS sites via LDM. Like its CONUS-sector counterpart (received by all AWIPS users via the SBN), this product estimates fog depth and the probability of reduced aviation visibility (Marginal Visual Flight Rules, Instrument Flight Rules, and Low Instrument Flight Rules) - as summarized in the FLS Dataset Guide. The Alaska sector is extracted from the Full Disk FLS product every 10 minutes.


ICYMI

 

NOAA-21 VIIRS Outgassing Feb 26-29

NOAA placed the NOAA-21 VIIRS instrument into 'outgassing' mode in a standard procedure on February 26-29, 2024. This allowed moisture and free oxygen bubbles to escape. NOAA-21 VIIRS science data was not available during this period. OSPO then confirmed all products were approved for operational use as of March 6. More information can be found in the OSPO bulletins.

 

New VLab Resource for GOES RGBs

A table listing the GOES RGB products available in AWIPS can now be found on the TOWR-S VLab site here. Most entries have CIRA Quick Guides attached for further reading. Please use the Feedback Form or contact V Wegman (victoria.wegman@noaa.gov) with questions about the webpage.


Looking Ahead

OceanSat-3 Ocean Surface Wind Vectors

The TOWR-S team has been working with NESDIS to produce AWIPS-compatible Ocean Wind Vectors from the OSCAT-3 scatterometer aboard the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO)'s OceanSat-3 (EOS-6) satellite. In the coming months, we expect to make this product available to all NWS AWIPS sites, with AWIPS configurations coming in TOWRPro (formerly known as TOWR-S RPM) v25. This will fill the observational gap left when ISRO's SCATSAT scatterometer ceased operating in February 2021; and it will maintain dual-satellite coverage of ocean wind vectors when the Metop-B satellite (w/ ASCAT ocean winds) ceases operations.

Image caption: OSCAT-3 Ocean Surface Wind Vectors in AWIPS on February 25.

 

GOES-U Preparations

GOES-U, the fourth and final satellite in the GOES-R series, is due to launch on or after May 20, 2024. Preparations for GOES-U are underway, with testing continuing throughout 2024. After various phases of Post-Launch Testing, the GOES-U satellite is expected to begin operation (as GOES-19) in February 2025, replacing GOES-16 in the GOES-East role at Longitude 75.2°W. It will carry the same instrument suite as GOES-16, plus a new solar Compact CORonagraph (CCOR).