GOES Satellite Imagery for GIS
The IEM has a long history processing the GOES Satellite information into formats and services appropriate for GIS. This processing was based on the GINI format of products provided by NOAA. The IEM implemented a number of services and archives based on this format.
With the advent of GOES-R and GOES-S, this GINI format was discontinued and the IEM pulled the plug on the various GOES East services back in 2018 and now in late 2019 GOES West.
A renewed effort is now being made to process the new GOES-R and GOES-S data into similar formats and services as before. There is not a one-to-one match here due to many reasons.
The source of our GOES data comes via Unidata NIMAGE products, which nicely merge the netCDF tiles into consistent products. These products use a geostationary satellite projection that the IEM attempts to natively store and use within the various services.
Changes
- 30 Aug 2024: It was discovered that the various Hawaii services were no longer updating. Turns out that the input source was discontinued by NOAA. The GOES West services cover Hawaii now and should be used instead.
- 1 December 2019: GOES West products have stopped and everything has been migrated to new workflows based on GOES-R (GOES-16) and GOES-S (GOES-17).
- 30 January 2018: GOES East products and services have been removed
- 18 December 2017: The GOES "East" satellite has been assigned now to the recently launched GOES R/16 satelitte. Sadly, due to format changes and the amount of CPU processing and disk storage needed, the IEM can likely no longer process these datasets. The old GOES "East" continues to transmit until the first week or so of January.
- 24 November 2014: The Infrared Imagery is now color enhanced by default. The previous default grayscale was not very useful. You can find a color ramp here.
OGC Web Map Service
GOES West infrared imagery
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/goes/west_ir.cgi?
GOES West Alaska infrared imagery
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/goes/alaska_ir.cgi?
GOES West visible imagery
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/goes/west_vis.cgi?
GOES West Alaska visible imagery
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/goes/alaska_vis.cgi?
GOES West water vapor imagery
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/goes/west_wv.cgi?
GOES West Alaska water vapor imagery
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/wms/goes/alaska_wv.cgi?
Note: To get the WMS capabilities, you need to add
VER=1.1.1&SERVICE=WMS&REQUEST=GetCapabilities
to the URIs above. Your WMS application may require it.
Color Ramps Used
Channel 1
Channel 2
Channel 3
Channel 4
Channel 5
Channel 6
Channel 7
Channel 8
Channel 9
Channel 10
Channel 11
Channel 12
Channel 13
Channel 14
Channel 15
Channel 16
Archive
Since 20 Dec 2005, the IEM has archived 4km composites of East/West imagery.
Since 8 March 2009, water vapor channel was added to the archive as well.
Since 21 June 2011, the IEM started archiving GOES East and West vis,ir, and water vapor imagery in PNG format on the AWIPS 211 projection.
Since 14 March 2012, the IEM started archiving all of the GINI processed imagery.
22 March 2012, removed the confusing filenames of including the GOES satellite identifier in the filename. This causes problems when the satellites change from east to west.
https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/archive/data/2024/12/22/GIS/sat/
The URL pattern contains the year, month, and day. The datafiles have timestamps in UTC.
Online Applications
- The RADAR & NWS Warnings app provides a neat web mapping interface combining radar and satellite data along with NWS warning products.