I'm going to start back up gently, though with a rather important weather topic.
Satellites, in particular, a failing satellite that services over half the population of the United States.
The problem started in early September. A weather satellite called GOES 13(GOES = Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOES) began having problems. A wavy pattern developed in some the images it was sending to earth. The problem continued to become more and more noticeable at time went on.
This particular satellite covers much of the Atlantic Ocean and the Eastern 2/3rds of the United States. This of course is responsible for covering tropical systems in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico as well as the majority of the United States populace. Basically, it's pretty important to a lot of people and meteorologists.
Once the problems become very noticeable, engineers began to investigate, remotely of course. They realized that nothing could be done while the satellite was active, so they decided to take it offline for a period of time. Well, this was done Saturday, 9/22. What they found was not good and it has not been back online since. They have scrambled around and have begun sending lower resolution imagery from other satellites. They fear that GOES 13 problems could be unrepairable and may need to be replaced.
So what does this mean? One of the big concerns is the impact it will have on forecast data. Currently, several of the guidance models that help meteorologists forecast the weather use satellite data to initialize their model runs. Right now, that satellite data is grainy and a much lower resolution. In general, until something is fixed, forecast quality could be degraded. Something to keep in mind when watching or hearing the weather forecast.
If you are interested, go here for a bit more information from someone who is closer to the situation than I am: http://yourweatherblog.com/?p=10749&goback=%2Egde_70721_member_168311257
Next blog will be about the long range forecast for the United States for the next 3 to 4 months.
Thanks for reading and welcome back!
-Jon K.
