GOES-11 Results last updated 3 July 2008

Table of Contents

• Operational Results
• Semi-Operational Results
• Early Visible Images
• First Infrared Image
• First Visible Image

Operational Results

• Pacific Boris and Douglas (3.2 MB PNG) at 1800 on 3 July 2008. The regular pulse of tropical storms and hurricanes that drift westward from the warm waters of the Guatemala Basin churn up the waves that make summertime surfing possible on the beaches of southern California.
• Sunglint sequence in the Gulf of Tehmantepec (6.5 MB QT) 20-29 May 2008 at 1500 UTC each day.
• Sunglint in the Gulf of Tehmantepec (1.3 MB GIF) at 1500 UTC on 20 May 2008. The seas of the Guatemalen basin are often becalmed, providing a strong reflection of the Sun that drives the GOES visible channel to saturation.
• Smoking Southern California movie (3.6 MB QT) visible channel, 21-25 October 2007.
  Smoking Southern California color movie (2.1 MB QT) overlaid on a color map, 21-25 October 2007.
  The "Santa Anna winds" finally die down after 4 days, replaced by the normal on-shore sea breeze.
• Smoking Southern California (0.2 MB JPG) at 1845 UTC on 22 October 2007. Wildfires burn out-of-control in the coastal hills, fanned by the strong, dry "Santa Anna winds" from the high plains. The smoke plumes extend far out over the Pacific, while 500,000 people evacuate.
• Hurricane Dalila (0.3 MB JPG) at 1800 UTC on 27 July 2007. The ghostly shift of Baja is due to a misalignment of the GOES-11 satellite image to the color background.
• Smoke-filled West (0.1 MB JPG) on the morning of 9 July 2007. More than a dozen major wildfires cover the high plains with smoke. In just one hour on Sunday, July 8, more than 12,000 lightning strokes hit Utah from "dry thunderstorms", whose rain evaporates before it hits the ground.
• April in Anchorage Alaska (416 kB GIF) at 2045 URTC on 1 April 2007. A clear spring day reveals Kodiak Island, the Cook Inlet, and the glaciated mountains surrounding the city at the top of the inlet.
• Hurricane John on the coast of Mexico (0.9 MB GIF) at 1500 UTC on 30 August 2006. The 2006 Pacific hurricane and typhoon season is quite busy, while the Atlantic is not.
• Hurricane Ileana in the Pacific (0.3 MB JPG) at 2045 UTC on 24 August 2006. It's just a pretty storm.
• Hurricane Daniel in the Pacific (4.1 MB GIF) at 1800 UTC on 21 July 2006. Winds were 115 knots in a compact storm, just past its maximum of 125 knots. Ironically, a strom with the same name, Daniel, had been observed six years earlier, during the post-launch checkout of GOES-11.

Semi-Operational Results

• NOAA's GOES-11 Science test plans for the first 2 weeks of August 2000

Early Visible Images

• Hurricane Daniel west of Baja (1.3 MByte GIF) at 2100 UTC on 25 July 2000. Central winds had reached 110 knots at this point. GOES-11 was being used in test mode to make rapid scans, the most intense day for this storm.

First Infrared Image

• First GOES-11 infrared test images (1.1 MByte GIF) 2202 UTC on 10 June 2000. A weak broadcast signal caused static and line-drops in the reception at GSFC, but the detectors and on-orbit electronics seem OK.

First Visible Image

• First GOES-11 color poster (0.6 MByte JPEG). In this poster, the GOES-11 visible images of the clouds are overlaid on a color map of the western hemisphere derived from NOAA's AVHRR observations from polar orbit.
• First official GOES-11 full-earth image at 1900 UTC on 17 May 2000, captured at NASA-GSFC. This version is only 1% of all the pixels in the scene.
• First GOES-11 image, with full-res call-outs (0.9 MByte GIF) 17 May 2000. The day happened to have severe storms in the upper midwest.
• The following 3 images are brightness-enhanced, but otherwise raw pixel data
  • First GOES-11 image, 4 km resolution (4.9 MByte GIF) 17 May 2000
  • First GOES-11 image, 2 km resolution (19 MByte GIF) 17 May 2000
  • First GOES-11 image, 1 km resolution (71 MByte GIF) 17 May 2000