Next Scheduled Satellite Passes over Coonabarabran, Australia

* Local time is AEST or AEDT (during daylight savings time period).

New images are added to display after every pass.

Explanation of the Weather Satellite images

There are 3 APT (Automatic Picture Transmission) active weather satellites, NOAA 15, NOAA 18 and NOAA 19 that send two monochrome images a pass using combinations of a visible light and three different infra-red wavelengths, depending whether day or night. These are used here to produce three coloured images.

MCIR (Multi Colour Infra Red) uses infra-red images to colour land from light green to dark green and eventually to black due to higher temperatures, water blue, low cloud grey and high cloud white. It may be difficult to distinguish low cloud over land and water. Colours from green through red, and black to white are added to clouds, to indicate the possibility, of rain or snow, green being the least possible through to red, black, grey and white being progressively more possible.

MSA (Multi Spectral Analysis), uses infra-red images to improve detection of low cloud over land and water, but cannot be used at night as it also needs daylight images. So only MCIR images are produced at night. This is why both are displayed.

THERMAL shows the temperature the satellite sees of the surface and cloud. The scale on the left indicates the colour code.

COMPOSITE. Each satellite makes 2 or 3 passes that can be received from any given location approximately 100 minutes apart repeated approximately every 12 hours. Multiple passes are assembled to make composite images whose components may span several hours. If another satellite passes between passes of a given one, it's images may be used, thus reducing the time span of the composite image and improving its resolution and area of coverage.

When all images of the same satellite pass are produced, they are displayed in the one frame.

The yellow cross inicates the location of the receiving station and the yellow dots indicate cities with a population of 100,000 or more people.

Some useful links

Click here for the Australian Government's Bureau of Meteorology

Click here for Storm Tracker

** The currency of the images and other information on this page are subject to the availability of the appropriate equipment.

*** The images and other information on this page are dependent on information provided by other organisations and/or people. No responsibility for their accuracy and/or continued availability is taken by David H. Samuel.