
Watching Hurricanes Irma, Jose and Katia From Above Earth - jashkenas
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/12/us/hurricane-irma-satellite-images.html
======
jashkenas
It's nice to see that folks are enjoying this — it was a group effort to
wrestle the 22.3 gigs of imagery frames over FTP and get them cropped,
processed, overlaid and sorted in time.

For anyone who wants to dig deeper, the RAMMB branch of NOAA in Colorado
maintains a page of GOES16 loops of the day:
[http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/loop_of_the_d...](http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis/online/loop_of_the_day/)

... and also runs a fancy imagery viewer where you can play around with
different micrometer wavelength bands: [http://rammb-
slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-16&sec=full...](http://rammb-
slider.cira.colostate.edu/?sat=goes-16&sec=full_disk)

~~~
phkahler
It would be really awesome to have this as wallpaper on a 4K monitor and have
it update every 15 minutes. Is there a fixed URL to the most recent image?

~~~
jashkenas
There isn't one that I'm aware of ... yet.

That said, the raw data is available through an S3-compatible service, here:
[https://osdc.rcc.uchicago.edu/noaa-
goes16](https://osdc.rcc.uchicago.edu/noaa-goes16)

With documentation about how to navigate and use the files here:
[http://edc.occ-data.org/goes16/getdata/](http://edc.occ-
data.org/goes16/getdata/)

So it would be possible to script together something that cooks out a nice
high-rez full disc image every 15 minutes.

For fun, here's one of the full disc frames we cropped in from:

[https://d1ax1i5f2y3x71.cloudfront.net/items/0J2g1S1y2f2D1y0W...](https://d1ax1i5f2y3x71.cloudfront.net/items/0J2g1S1y2f2D1y0W0w2w/20172491730_g16_geocolor_fd_25.jpg)

Note that even though its 2712x2712 pixels, that's still way smaller than
GOES16's potential resolution. The highest rez versions of this image that
I've encountered go over 10,000 by 10,000...

~~~
amelius
What would be the latency of the images?

~~~
kornholi
Depends the way you look at it. The final data is generally available within a
couple minutes, but the data itself is not collected instantaneously. At least
for the full-disk scenes, the collection takes 11 minutes so the top of the
image is captured 11 minutes before the bottom.

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carlmcqueen
New York Times' ability to display data, information and stories visually on
the internet is truly a wonderful standard to see.

I really enjoyed the layout of this page, where the world sits, how the colors
in the background don't take away from the effect from the day/night
transitions. It is just wonderful.

~~~
noir_lord
NYT is just generally excellent when it comes to online news media, the one
other paper I can think of that comes close is The Guardian but NYT's
visualisations are a class of their own.

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koolba
These images are amazing. In particular the zoom in view on the Caribbean
showing the direct hit to St Martin.

> In a NOAA reconnaissance mission, a plane flew through the eye wall to
> gather data on the storm, recording winds of 139 miles per hour at sea
> level.

I don't know who the pilot is for this but he's got bigger balls than me.

~~~
jngreenlee
Any idea what the guy in the middle's job is? Looks like he watches an
instrument and pulls a lever based on what he observes. Seems like something
that could be automated!

~~~
rory096
First guess was dropping a dropsonde[0], but watching the video and cross-
checking a P-3 cockpit[1], looks like he's controlling the throttle.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropsonde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropsonde)

[1]
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/79/e9/f579e91f79ac79d91dc0...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/79/e9/f579e91f79ac79d91dc0bb85af37eebf.jpg)

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TeMPOraL
Wow, just wow. I didn't realize there finally are more cameras that can
provide this image quality in space, beyond the one that is (was?) on the ISS.
Also kudos to NYT for the way they put it together. I'm mesmerized by the
globe video.

~~~
sp332
GOES-16 was just launched in November last year.
[https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/witness-the-
firepowe...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/01/witness-the-firepower-of-
this-fully-armed-and-operational-weather-satellite/) There are 3 more of them
scheduled for the next 20 years.

~~~
gogoengie
Amazing comparison of Hurricane Irma from the new GOES-16 vs the old GOES-13:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QCJlBDAK80](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QCJlBDAK80)

The performance jump in capture time and resolution blew me away. Really
exciting to see it coming on-line.

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Poseidon_Nep
This is incredible. You can actually see the moment Irma's eye wall starts to
disintegrate.

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amelius
I was armchair-wondering what would have happened if North Korea would have
tested their H-bomb in the eye of a hurricane instead, but I found this old
broken HN post: [1]. It turns out not to be a good idea. Who would have
thought? :)

On the other hand, I'm still curious if a "directed" explosion (i.e., not
radial but say with only an x-component) could accomplish something.

PS: It is a pity that the early formation of the hurricanes is not visible in
the video.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=698754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=698754)

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ereyes01
If you scroll down and look at South America, it's pretty remarkable how the
clouds clearly carve out the Andes mountain range. All the swirling moisture
from the southern Pacific smashes into the wall of the mountains and breaks
apart, save for squirts that get through some of the valleys to the other
side. I lost 10 minutes staring at all the details... really cool viz.

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volkk
> In a NOAA reconnaissance mission, a plane flew through the eye wall to
> gather data on the storm, recording winds of 139 miles per hour at sea
> level.

What kind of planes can safely fly through a storm like this? Or is the eye a
lot safer to go through?

~~~
sp332
NOAA Hurricane hunters fly WP-3 Orions.
[https://www.omao.noaa.gov/learn/aircraft-
operations/aircraft...](https://www.omao.noaa.gov/learn/aircraft-
operations/aircraft/lockheed-wp-3d-orion) USAF 53rd Weather Reconniassance
Squadron fly WC-130s.
[http://www.militaryaircrafthistorian.com/53rd_wrs.html](http://www.militaryaircrafthistorian.com/53rd_wrs.html)

Inside the eye can be calm, but the highest winds, wind shear, tornadoes,
rainfall, and hail, are in the eye wall.

~~~
volkk
I tried to read a bit about it, but couldn't really find much in terms of--
what makes these planes a lot more durable than your standard 737/747?

~~~
okreallywtf
I wondered specifically why both planes were prop driven (seems like a jet
engine would have more thrust and you wouldn't have to worry about wind forces
on the props) and I found this, hopefully it helps with your question as well.

[https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2016/05/...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2016/05/29/turboprop-
propeller-plane/85045552/)

~~~
volkk
This is awesome. Thanks!

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singularity2001
Is there a tendency for Hurricane eyes to 'open' at night and close again in
the morning, or was it coincidence?

~~~
3JPLW
My hunch is that it's just an artifact from the shift in imaging technologies
from visible wavelengths to infrared (or somesuch).

