Back at the beginning of March, NOAA launched the GOES-T spacecraft aboard a ULA Atlas V. While the satellite is still in the post-launch testing and calibration phase, the agency has already renamed it GOES-18. NOAA plans to replace GOES-17, which is currently being used as GOES-West, with GOES-18 early in 2023. Despite still being considered ‘non-operational’, GOES-18 is already providing data on lightning strike observations here in the Western Hemisphere.

Last month, the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument onboard captured the massive amount of activity that occurred when a derecho moved through the Northern Plains of South Dakota into Minnesota and across parts of Ontario. Derechos not only bring rain and lightning but strong winds and even tornadoes and dust devils. Our own Canadian community members in Ottawa were affected by the wall of storms that downed trees and took out power – including outages that lasted for 10 plus days.

Having the lightning mapper onboard GOES-18 means that meteorologists can better determine how electrically active a storm system is and how much of a threat the lightning presents. The information collected also helps see where storms are weakening, surging, and just generally evolving. And all of this data can supplement areas where radar coverage is thin on the ground.

GOES-18 can even fly along with a storm, tracking individual storm cells. Our weather satellites have come a long way.

More Information

NOAA press release