GOES-R Series News | 2025
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April 22, 2025: Earth From Orbit: Happy Earth Day from NOAA Satellites
NOAA satellites have been monitoring Earth’s weather and environment since 1970, which also happened to be the year the first official Earth Day took place! Building upon early pioneering efforts by NASA and others, today’s advanced satellites provide critical information that feeds forecast models and warns us of severe weather and environmental hazards. For NOAA, every day is Earth Day. Take a look back at our world since last April 22.
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April 7, 2025: NOAA’s GOES-19 satellite now operational, providing critical new data to forecasters
On April 7, 2025, GOES-19 entered operational service as GOES East. The fourth and final satellite in the GOES-R Series launched on June 25, 2024. In its new role, GOES-19 watches over much of the Western Hemisphere. It will track hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic basin, as well as monitor severe weather, atmospheric rivers, wildfires, volcanic eruptions and other environmental events. The satellite also carries a suite of space weather instruments, including NOAA’s first compact coronagraph instrument (CCOR-1). CCOR-1 images the outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere to detect and characterize coronal mass ejections and warn of impending geomagnetic storms. With GOES-19 joining the fleet, NOAA’s geostationary satellite constellation is set to carry on its longstanding mission and deliver life-saving data into the 2030s. Watch the Earth from Orbit video.
April
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March 12, 2025: How NOAA Satellites Help Us Stay Ahead of Severe Weather Season
GOES-16 visible and infrared imagery of a squall line of severe thunderstorms producing damaging winds marching through the Southeast U.S. on March 4, 2025. Each year, the arrival of spring brings the increasing probability for severe weather to the United States. From their orbits, NOAA satellites play a vital role in detecting and tracking severe weather by providing forecasters with critical data to predict and monitor life-threatening conditions. Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) enable continuous coverage of severe weather threats in the U.S., while the polar-orbiting Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) satellites deliver higher resolution global observations for long-term forecasting. Together, these advanced satellites help safeguard lives and property.
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March 7, 2025: Earth from Orbit: NOAA Satellites Monitor Hazardous Early Spring Storm
NOAA satellites monitored a large storm system as it pushed across the Central U.S. in early March 2025. The system prompted widespread weather alerts for everything from blizzard warnings and wind advisories to tornado watches and heightened wildfire risks across much of the country. NOAA’s GOES satellites tracked the system in near real-time, providing forecasters and first responders with critical information about the storm. The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) helped track rapidly changing weather conditions, analyze the structure of the storm, and pinpoint areas where the storm was the most intense. The ABI also identified several wildfire ignitions across the Southern Plains, alerting the National Weather Service to the threat. The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) measured lightning activity and helped provide early warning that the storm was intensifying. Dynamic storm systems like this demonstrate the strength and unpredictability of spring weather. NOAA satellites remain vital for forecasting and monitoring these storms as well as their impacts, helping to protect lives, property, and economic vitality.
March
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February 14, 2025: What is El Niño?
Have you ever heard a news headline mentioning that unusual or extreme weather is expected due to El Niño? But what exactly is El Niño? And what does it have to do with our weather? A new video from NOAA SciJinks explains this phenomenon and how meteorologists can use information from GOES-R satellites to help predict if an El Niño pattern is forming.
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February 6, 2025: Earth from Orbit: NOAA Satellites Track Powerful Atmospheric Rivers Impacting the West Coast
Since Jan. 31, 2025, NOAA satellites have been closely monitoring a series of strong atmospheric rivers bringing heavy rain and mountain snow from central California to the Pacific Northwest, the Sierras, southern Cascades, and northern Rocky mountains. GOES-18 (GOES West) provides detailed information about moisture in the atmosphere and allows forecasters to track atmospheric rivers as they happen. The satellite provides critical data about the movement of clouds and water vapor patterns that help to forecast heavy rain and flash flooding from atmospheric rivers. As atmospheric rivers continue to impact the western U.S., NOAA satellites will closely monitor these events and provide critical information to forecasters and local communities.
February
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January 21, 2025: GOES-R/GeoXO Newsletter, October – December 2024
The GEO team gathered in October 2024 to celebrate building and launching all four satellites in the GOES-R Series. The GOES-R/GeoXO quarterly newsletter for October – December 2024 is now available. As GOES-19 prepares to enter operational service, the team is recognized for the tremendous amount of hard work and dedication they have put into GOES-R since 1999. From the very start of the program, the GOES-R team has been recognized as setting the standard for satellite and ground system development as well as inter-agency collaboration. The GOES-R system will continue to serve our nation providing observations of severe weather and environmental conditions into the 2030s, while the focus of our team now turns to GeoXO development. We completed the Mission Definition Review in December, are working on evolving the ground system for GeoXO, and are preparing to enter the preliminary design phase. Congressional support of GeoXO has us on track for planned launches. It is an exciting time as we make NOAA’s next-generation geostationary satellite system a reality, bringing new and improved capabilities to meet our users’ needs and address emerging environmental challenges.
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January 21, 2025: Earth from Orbit: NOAA Satellites Track Raging Wildfires in California
NOAA satellites are closely monitoring wildfires burning in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The first blazes erupted on Jan. 7, 2025, and quickly exploded in size and intensity, prompting widespread evacuation orders. The destructive wildfires have destroyed thousands of structures and claimed the lives of at least 25 people according to reporting by local authorities. GOES-18 (GOES West) monitored the fires in near real-time, measured the intensity, tracked the spread and movement of smoke.
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January 14, 2025: NOAA Celebrates 50 Years of GOES Satellites
In 2025, NOAA is celebrating 50 years of its heralded Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite program, known as GOES. For five decades, NOAA and NASA have partnered to advance NOAA satellite observations from geostationary orbit. GOES are our sentinels in the sky: keeping constant watch for severe weather and environmental hazards on Earth and dangerous space weather. As NOAA celebrates the long legacy of the GOES, we continue to rely on these satellites for short-term forecasts of hazardous weather, detection and monitoring of environmental phenomena like wildfires, smoke, volcanic ash, dust storms and fog, and warnings of approaching space weather that can disrupt communication and navigation systems, disrupt power grids, damage satellites in space and expose astronauts to harmful radiation.