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Main US Weather Satellite Fails As Hurricane Season Looms
First time accepted submitter Rebecka writes with bad news, quoting an IB Times report: "Just as the 2013 hurricane season is about to begin, one of the U.S.' main weather satellites failed this week. The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, also known as GOES-13, reportedly ceased to operate as of Tuesday, making it impossible to predict weather patterns on the East Coast."
A note at NOAA's page for the GOES family of satellites says "GOES-13 imaging and sounding operations suspended. Recovery efforts for GOES-13 continue and the spacecraft health and safety are nominal. GOES-14 is being activated." You can follow the progress on the agency's page of General Satellite Messages.
we don't need it, god will look after us
in the USA weather moves west to east
Generally, yes. But many tropical systems that affect the eastern US start their formation off the coast of Africa and move East to West.
I actually work on one of the teams that is building the GOES-R satellite. Say what you will about funding and scheduling, but we have not been cancelled.
What are you doing here? get back to work
If the weather satellite fails, we can just get our weather from the Internet like everybody else.
Or the trillion-plus dollars they've spent on a war in Iraq for which absolutely none of the stated reasons turned out to be true.
Well, Lotus Notes is worse.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
You're working on Gozer? Does that make you the Keymaster or the Gatekeeper?
I think you're gonna have to come in on Saturday.
Actually, Democrats only kind of had a super majority for about 4 months starting at the end of 2009. But only if you count 2 independents and the blue dog Democrats as voting with them, which they don't. So instead, you had the Republicans using the filibuster more than any Congress in history. Oh, but wait, the only way they've been able to filibuster so often is because they just expressed their intent to filibuster without actually doing the time consuming work of a filibuster. That way they can quickly get on with the business of expressing intent to filibuster even more.
The satellite blog at University of Wisconsin has more information including some images from GOES 14, now turned on.
Didn't read even TFS, I see.
They've already activated the back-up satellite (GOES-14), which has been in orbit waiting for this for four years now (launched in 2009).
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
GOES-R looks really cool.
Here is a trailer/teaser video about it, excellent production values. It could be titled: "GOES-R : Into Fog"
The page that has links to all these videos is at a special U.S. government website about GOES-R
This is a much longer video which details all of the instruments.
Finally, you may enjoy this video on the overall NOAA project and system, and how GOES-R fits into that system. Of note in this video is the statement that currently three (3) GOES satellites provide redundant coverage of the U.S.
At the moment, GOES-15 is the west coast satellite, at longitude 135 West. GOES-13 was imaging from 75W. GOES-14 is presently located at 105W.
And how many satellites could have been built with the $535 MILLION that the Obama Administration gave to Solyndra?
I'm not sure, but you could have built at least 7000x as many satellites for the cost of the Iraq War. Bonus points for a lot fewer Americans killed.
They could take money from other useless parts (like the website that the private sector has entirely covered
Uh, where do you think "the private sector" is getting their data from?
Or, even by cutting off welfare for people that ARE able bodied and can work. Or by cutting the waste from Medicare and SS, which are about the other 2/3 of the main budget chunks along with military.
You know, if we shrunk the Federal Govt back down to more resemble what it is Constitutionally mandated to do, we could easily afford a lot more stuff.
Hell, why don't we quit sending so much fucking money out for Foreign Aid, and spend it on satellites? Who objects to that one?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Most forecasting is done by meteorologists viewing the predicted conditions based on a numerical model that normally gets run every 12 hours. The model's forecast is usually pretty good out to 72 hours or so. What happens is that an experienced weather-guesser (ex-Navy, here) will look at the model's output (which lags realtime to some degree) and compare the prediction to the actual conditions for the timeframe in question. If the correlation is high, he/she will put more faith into the model's longer term predictions. If the model isn't tracking reality very well, the forecaster will rely on experience rather than the numerical prediction for the longer-range forecast.
Sounder data from the available weather satellites is used to seed the modelling software as close to its run time as possible, to set up starting conditions for the observable areas. If that data is lacking, the previous model run data closest to the time of the new run is used. (GIGO applies...)
The realtime data can also come from radiosondes, official observations stations, buoys, or what have you. Losing a bird doesn't mean the forecasting infrastructure will fall apart; it just means that imagery will come from a different source (= different angle, with attendant distortion), and some loss of realtime input for the model run.
"Or, even by cutting off welfare for people that ARE able bodied and can work. "
Ageed, When do we start cutting the pay to Congress?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.