Hurricanes develop far from land in wide areas of the sub-tropical Atlantic and Pacific oceans, where only satellites can provide up-to-date weather data. NASA's GOES Project has created a method to animate satellite imagery on a true-color map over that large area to watch the early development of hurricanes.
"These new live animations provide panoramic views of each hurricane alley in HDTV wide-screen format," Chesters said. Viewers can see tropical cyclones in the Pacific developing off of the western Mexican or Central American coasts, potentially threatening Mexico or Hawaii. The Atlantic panorama revels the potential hurricanes that threaten the Caribbean islands and the USA's eastern and gulf coasts, and also shows the constant flow of convective storms across the eastern USA.
All of the animations can be found at the NASA GOES Project Web page: http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/. There are four links, each labeled "Hurricane Alley HDTV," next to the GOES-EAST and the GOES-WEST images of the USA and the globe. Each link delivers a hurricane alley movie from the area suggested by the image next to the link.
For example, to see what's happening in the always stormy Atlantic, click the link next to the GOES-EAST global image:http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/goescolor/goeseast/overview2/movie/alley_east_globe.mp4
Stretch your browser window wide to see the entire panorama.
The "global view" of the Atlantic Ocean is most interesting because it displays several weather regimes simultaneously. It shows the easterly winds in Hurricane Alley, daily thunderstorms over the Antilles, storms across the southeast U.S., the prevailing westerly winds and Atlantic storms at mid-latitudes.
NASA GOES Project now offers real-time HDTV movies of the east- and west-coast "hurricane alley" regions. This is a short movie of GOES satellite imagery showing Hurricane Bill from August 2009.
(Photo Credit: NASA GOES Project)
NASA GOES Project now offers real-time HDTV movies of the east- and west-coast "hurricane alley" regions. This is a short movie of GOES satellite imagery showing Hurricane Bill from August 2009.
(Photo Credit: NASA GOES Project)
Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center