Updated May 29, 2025                                                  To view this as a web article, click here.

May News

Jump to:

 

Recent Updates

 

GOES-19 Successful Transition to GOES-East on April 7th

The GOES-19 satellite (launched on June 25, 2024) successfully became Operational on April 7, 2025 at 1500UTC, replacing GOES-16 at Longitude 75.2W. GOES-19 is now officially GOES-East.

GOES-16 will remain in non-operational storage mode near 105W for the foreseeable future.

More information on GOES-19 is available via the GOES-R website available via the GOES-R website.

 

AWIPS Software Update Now Available

Updates to the TOWR-S RPM and AWIPS Pre-Processor (APP) are now packaged together as TOWRpro v25 for Weather Forecast Offices and River Forecast Centers. Thank you to the >140  sites who have installed the latest version! Staff at the remaining sites are invited to install the software using this procedure. More details about what the software package entails are found here. Please visit the #towr-s Slack channel or contact Emily Maddox with questions.

 

NWS Satellite Readiness Roadmap Activities

The last 6 months of collaboration across NWS and NESDIS resulted in a preliminary roadmap for satellite readiness activities which was briefed to NWS Leadership and the NASA and NOAA Agency-level Program Management Council (APMC) (see slides). 

The next steps for the NWS Satellite Readiness Project will focus on planning NWS satellite readiness activities for future satellite missions (e.g. description of the activities (Work Breakdown Structure), schedule, cost estimates, roles and responsibilities, risk assessment) with more precision and detail. The project will also describe the characteristics of the proposed systems from the perspective of the intended users, outlining how the systems will be operated and used, and communicating key features and functionalities to stakeholders. Development of a NWS Satellite Readiness Project Plan integrating the various infrastructure activities into a master plan will enhance coordination, reduce conflicts, improve decision-making, and provide a more comprehensive vision for the project (i.e. NWS Satellite Readiness). This project will provide better description of the elements of the systems (end to end from NESDIS to NWS) for both modeling and forecasting systems that distribute, ingest, process, store, and display satellite products and how the systems will be operated and used. The result will allow for development of a corresponding satellite-to-user CONOPS for satellite data exploitation.

Please contact Fawaz Al-Mtwali with any questions regarding the Satellite Readiness Project planning activities.

ICYMI

TOWR-S Quarterly Update on April 25

Each quarter, the TOWR-S Team and the NWS Office of Observations review recent and upcoming satellite data products, services, and resources supporting forecast operations. The last update was held on April 25. This and all past presentation slides are available on VLab. Please contact Derek Van Pelt with any questions.

 

ALPW Added to SBN on March 28

The CIRA Advected Layered Precipitable Water (ALPW) product from JPSS satellites has been implemented into NESDIS operations, and became available to all sites via SBN as of March 28. It replaced what was previously available over regional LDM on PDA Ops. The ALPW product is handled by TOWRpro v25. More information is available in SCN 25-03.

 

GOES Enterprise Rain Rate Product Now on SBN on March 5

The Enterprise Rain Rate product from GOES became available via the Satellite Broadcast Network on March 5. This has replaced the legacy RR product with no change to the data cadence or volumes. More information is available in SCN 25-13.

 

SBN Availability of OSCAT Winds Delayed

OSCAT Winds data implementation in the NESDIS cloud (NCCF) has been delayed, with the focus now to start operational delivery in November. The latest TOWRpro (see above) provides a migrational (non operational) data flow path from a NESDIS STAR server through to NWS where the data can be ingested and displayed. The TOWRpro enhancement will also handle the product when the OSCAT data flow is cutover from the STAR server to the SBN. Please contact the TOWR-S Team with any questions.

Looking Ahead

Migration of NDE Products to NCCF on June 26

Several NESDIS Data Exploitation (NDE) Products will be migrated to the NESDIS Common Cloud Framework (NCCF) on or about June 26, 2025. Please refer to the OSPO Termination Notification for a list of products to be updated. The production change should result in no change to downstream NWS users. Please contact Derek Van Pelt with further questions.