From Meteosat:
“MTG-I1 will produce more precise data, faster, than the Meteosat Second Generation satellites have been able to. With the Lightning Imager on board, it will produce new data of great importance for community and aviation safety. “This really is the start of a new era in weather forecasting.”
It will take a year to get to full operations I read…
What would that practical mean for real time satellite Weather data in comparison on what we have now in terms of performance e.g on ADL?
My feeling is satellites are vastly overrated. When we had the pandemic, weather forecast went rather unreliable and the weather simulator told this due to missing measurement data from the airliners … so I guess another satellite will not really improve anything other than the pockets of the ones building it.
Weather forecasting is – like most science – an incremental process, so I guess this will make it a bit better. Just don’t expect any quantum leaps.
I find the current free UK Metoffice App, non-aviation, much better for local weather than the restricted access Aviation weather. I’m referring to the rain map. It got a huge upgrade recently.
Lightning detection is useless when you can easily do it from the ground e.g.
https://www.blitzortung.org/en/live_lightning_maps.php?map=10
has been there since for ever.
AIUI, satellites are used in wx forecasting for all kinds of stuff, and they are very good for measuring the speed at which wx moves.
Peter wrote:
Lightning detection is useless when you can easily do it from the ground e.g.
Ground based detection works very well but only in an area with enough ground receivers. In 1st world countries this is not an issue but data for Africa or the open ocean is hard to come by. In fact the same applies for radar etc.
MichaLSA wrote:
My feeling is satellites are vastly overrated.
Well, they totally changed the way meteorology works. If that’s overrated, I don’t know.
Before satellite imagery and data was available, it was never possible to actually understand larger systems of weather and how they actually work. Compilation of synoptic charts was an exercise which took several hours, there were no models either. Forecasting was available for a few hours or one or two days.
Satellite pictures gave meteorologists the very first full picture of what weather systems actually look like. That was pure IR pictures at the time, one per 6 hours. Today we have near real time data, which is revolutionary to say the least. The resolution and data availability of MTG is outright mind blowing as compared to Meteosat 1 or 2.
Weather models as we know them today work on the basis of satellite and observation data. With observations going more and more automatic, sat data and remote sensing become the only sources of it. The more so, satellite imaging is the base of just about everything we see as products.
MichaLSA wrote:
When we had the pandemic, weather forecast went rather unreliable and the weather simulator told this due to missing measurement data from the airliners …
What kind of weather simulator are you talking about? Weather data by airliners is a very nice thing, sure, but for it to have such an extreme effect would be news to me. In terms of flight plannig, I recall vividly working with much older GFS and European wind data in the 1998-2002 area and the results were quite good even then, also without airliner data. Apart, airliner data primarily replace soundings, which were still done during Covid time. I am not aware of any change to forecast quality during that time.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I am not aware of any change to forecast quality during that time.
I actually read the same claim in Swedish media.
