show me a satellite view of local cloud cover

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration uses two kinds of satellites: Infrared radiation emitted by clouds reveals theirtemperatures, which can then be used to calculate cloud heights. Radiation sensed in the visible part of the spectrum(ordinary light) allows satellites to reproduce the Earth’s cloud cover as if they weretaking a picture of Earth from space. Satellite sensors detect and record the radiation reflected and radiated by clouds andwater vapor in the troposphere. Today’s sensors can capture details as small as one-half mile across, andtechnological advances have increased the number of ways of probing the lower atmosphere. More than three decades of fine tuning have sharpened the resolutionof these images. When meteorologists saw the first images of Earth from NASA’s Tiros 1 spacecraft in1960, they quickly realized that satellites would play a vital role in understanding andforecasting weather. But, in one form or another, all images show the same thing – water as clouds orvapor in the atmosphere.īy the way, 'images' is a much better word than 'photo' to describethe pictures from satellites because they show things no ordinary camera could evercapture, such as invisible water vapor or the temperatures of cloud tops. These images come in a variety of forms and sizes, from global composites that resemblesnapshots of the Earth from space to tight close ups of individual thunderstorm tops, dayor night.

Satellites are the weather eyes in the sky that meteorologists use to see major rainand snow storms, thunderstorms ahead of warm fronts or along cold fronts, high clouds andfog, and even jet stream winds.

Show me a satellite view of local cloud cover