Received: from hplabs.hpl.hp.com by opus.hpl.hp.com with SMTP (1.37.109.8/15.5+ECS 3.3+HPL1.1) id AA26859; Mon, 3 Apr 1995 14:33:09 -0700 Return-Path: <jackg@cache.crc.ricoh.com-DeleteThis> Received: from cache.crc.ricoh.com by hplabs.hpl.hp.com with SMTP (1.37.109.16/15.5+ECS 3.3+HPL1.1SU) id AA145604780; Mon, 3 Apr 1995 14:33:00 -0700 Received: by cache.crc.ricoh.com (5.57/Ultrix3.0-C) id AA28286; Mon, 3 Apr 95 14:27:50 -0700 Received: from localhost by downhaul.crc.ricoh.com.crc.ricoh.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA00724; Mon, 3 Apr 95 14:36:50 PDT Message-Id: <9504032136.AA00724@downhaul.crc.ricoh.com.crc.ricoh.com-DeleteThis> To: wind_talk@opus.hpl.hp.com-DeleteThis Subject: Re: BA Satellite Photo On WWW? Date: Mon, 03 Apr 1995 14:36:50 -0700 From: Jack Greenbaum <jackg@cache.crc.ricoh.com-DeleteThis>
On Sat, 01 Apr 1995 12:06:00 PST Will Estes wrote:
> Has anyone done the obvious yet and started putting the hourly
> satellite photos for the Bay up on the World Wide Web? If someone
> does this, let's be sure to have them get the polar satellite photos
> there as well. They get taken less often, but have better clarity.
As far as I've found, there really isn't such a thing as a "Bay Area"
sattelite photo, only shots that one can find the bay area in. The two
sattelites that point to North America are GOES-8 and GOES-7 (GOES-8 is
much newer). GOES-7 are FULL DISK IMAGES of the earth, GOES-8 is at
least the northern hemisphere, and they come in various infra-red and
visual bands. GOES-8 has better resoultion, and is in a better location
for the bay area, but has been flakey for a while now.
One place that these shots are available is
ftp://explorer.arc.nasa.gov/pub/Weather. I'd plug the most recent one
into my web site, except it will take a little programming. The files
are stored by date and time. So to get the most recent one I'll have to
write a script that groks the dates into a machine-sortable format. Not
a big deal, but it means I'd actually have to *THINK*. To manually
access these, use the above URL, and find the satellite, image type
(gif, jpg) band, and resolution (currely 4km per pixel is the only one
available) you want (as in GOES-7/jpg/ir2/4km/), then find the most
recent one.
Even more useful, in my opinion, than the satellite photos is the North
Pacific surface presure charts at
http://www.pacrain.com/~gldcstwx/chrtaccs.html (the most recent one is
always http://www.pacrain.com/~gldcstwx/noddsgifs/npp/day0.gif and is
plugged into my web page). I followed the development of the Eastern
Pacific High (our wind idol) all last week, and was able to plan my
weekend accordingly.
It would be nice if one could judge the morning fog cover from the
satellite photos, but GOES-7 isn't detailed enough (or in the right
position, it's over the mid-pacific right now), so until the image
problems from GOES-8 get straightend out I don't think it's possible,
and even then at 4km per pixel it's pretty rough.
For more info you could look on sci.geo.meterology's FAQ, I haven't
looked at it for a while. explorer.arc.nasa.gov does have a third
satelite, GMS-4, but it appears to be pointed at the western pacific. If
anyone knows of better image I'd love to hear about it.
Jack Greenbaum -- Research Engineer, Ricoh California Research Center
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