NOAA GOES Satellites: Geostationary Weather Imagery for North America

GOES-19 became the operational GOES-East satellite on April 4, 2025, replacing GOES-16. NOAA's GOES-16, 17, 18, and 19 satellites provide continuous, full-disc monitoring of meteorological and space environment data from geostationary orbit. Reprocessed GOES-16 ABI L1b data from 2018-2024 mitigates systematic issues and improves calibration stability.

Use Cases

• Short-term weather forecasting based on continuous, high-frequency imagery.
• Severe weather condition monitoring based on atmospheric 'trigger' vigil mentioned in the description.
• Radiometric and geometric calibration analysis based on reprocessed L1b data with improved algorithms.
• Space environment data analysis based on monitoring of both meteorological and space data.

Strengths

• Reprocessed GOES-16 data spans the mission life from early 2018 through the end of 2024.
• Data includes enhancements like limb pixels and pixel timestamps while maintaining compatibility.
• Satellites provide continuous monitoring from a fixed geostationary position, enabling intensive data analysis.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Reprocessed data may still contain data gaps or discrepancies, as noted in the user guide.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Collection Method

Satellite observation from the GOES-R series (GOES-16, 17, 18, 19).

Time Range

GOES-16 data from early 2018 through 2024; operational timelines for GOES-17, 18, and 19 vary.

Freshness

Data includes a recent operational transition to GOES-19 in April 2025.

Geography

Primary coverage of North America from geostationary orbit (e.g., GOES-East at 75.2°W).