NOAAVisualizations | Powerful Cyclone Meranti South of Taiwan @NOAAVisualizations | Uploaded 8 years ago | Updated 1 hour ago
This two-minute rapid scan infrared imagery from the Himawari-8 satellite shows the path of Typhoon Meranti in the Northwest Pacific Ocean on September 13 and 14, 2016. Yesterday (9/13), Meranti, then a "Super Typhoon," (a classification reserved for cyclones with sustained wind speeds of more than 150 miles per hour) hit the island of Itbayat in the Luzon Strait and delivered a glancing blow to southern Taiwan. The cyclone is on track to make landfall in southeast China today.
As its name implies, two-minute rapid scan imagery can provide a scan of a particular area every 2 minutes, allowing forecasters to see intricate details of a storm as they develop. Moreover, this type of imagery offers us a glimpse of the kind of imagery we'll be able to obtain with NOAA's GOES-R satellite. GOES-R, now in Florida being prepared for launch, will carry a nearly identical imagery as Himawari-8.
The primary instrument aboard Himawari-8 -- the first unit of the Japan Meteorological Agency's third-generation of geostationary satellites -- is the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI), a 16 channel multispectral imager to capture visible light and infrared images of the Asia-Pacific region. Himawari's data are vital for global geostationary coverage, which is why NOAA and JMA have agreed to mutual back-up arrangements for their geostationary systems.
This two-minute rapid scan infrared imagery from the Himawari-8 satellite shows the path of Typhoon Meranti in the Northwest Pacific Ocean on September 13 and 14, 2016. Yesterday (9/13), Meranti, then a "Super Typhoon," (a classification reserved for cyclones with sustained wind speeds of more than 150 miles per hour) hit the island of Itbayat in the Luzon Strait and delivered a glancing blow to southern Taiwan. The cyclone is on track to make landfall in southeast China today.
As its name implies, two-minute rapid scan imagery can provide a scan of a particular area every 2 minutes, allowing forecasters to see intricate details of a storm as they develop. Moreover, this type of imagery offers us a glimpse of the kind of imagery we'll be able to obtain with NOAA's GOES-R satellite. GOES-R, now in Florida being prepared for launch, will carry a nearly identical imagery as Himawari-8.
The primary instrument aboard Himawari-8 -- the first unit of the Japan Meteorological Agency's third-generation of geostationary satellites -- is the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI), a 16 channel multispectral imager to capture visible light and infrared images of the Asia-Pacific region. Himawari's data are vital for global geostationary coverage, which is why NOAA and JMA have agreed to mutual back-up arrangements for their geostationary systems.
