Monthly Archives: October 2021

IFR Probability now archived in NOAA CLASS

Starting 21 October 2021, GOES-R IFR Probability fields are archived (for both GOES-16 and GOES-17, Full Disk and CONUS/PACUS domains) at NOAA CLASS. These fields are available under the drop-down menu: Choose ‘GOES-R Series L2+ Enterprise Products (GRABINDE)’, as shown below.

Product Search drop-down menu from the landing page of NOAA CLASS

Clicking on ‘>>Go‘ after selecting the product takes a user to the page below, from which page ABI Fog/Low Stratus products can be obtained.

Product Selection page at NOAA CLASS for GOES-17/GOES-16 Fog/Low Stratus products (including Cloud Thickness and IFR Probability fields)

The files retrieved from CLASS will be netCDF files with a filename structure such as this:

ABI-L2-GFLSC-M6_v3r0_g16_s202110220811172_e202110220813545_c202110220814421.nc

The file name above is for GOES-16 data from 0811 UTC on 22 October 2021. Such data can be displayed in (for example) Panoply, as shown below. Additionally, one could configure an AWIPS session to accept the fields.

IFR Probability fields, 0811 UTC on 22 October 2021 (GOES-16 CONUS) (Click to enlarge)

The netCDF files include many different 2-dimensional fields: IFR Probability, MVFR Probability, Low IFR Probability, Cloud Thickness, Maximum Relative Humidity between the surface and 500 feet AGL, Maximum Relative Humidity between the surface and 3000 feet AGL, Band 7 (3.9) Emissivitiy, and many more. A Full Disk image below (courtesy Tim Schmit, NOAA STAR), shows IFR Probability values on 27 October 2021 at 0000 UTC.

Global distribution of GOES-16 IFR Probability, 0000 UTC on 27 October 2021 (Click to enlarge)