NOAA's GOES-13 Tracks Hurricane Sandy

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) GOES-13 satellite is back in full operation and tracking Hurricane Sandy.   This image, taken today (October 29) at 12:15 UTC (8:15 am EDT), shows the vast reach of the storm.

Image credit:  NOAA

Sandy is expected to make a sharp turn to the northwest and make landfall tonight along the New Jersey coast and merge with another storm system coming in from the west.  The combination is being called Frankenstorm since it is occurring so close to Halloween.  Terms like “epic” and “catastrophic” are being used by officials to describe the potential damage from the storm.

The U.S. coastline between South Carolina and Connecticut/Rhode Island is shown in the image in bright pink.  The long, narrow, north-south Chesapeake Bay shows clearly about halfway up, and halfway up the Chesapeake Bay on the western shore is the Potomac River, which leads to Washington, DC.

At the top of the image is New York — including New York City and Long Island.  Long Island is separated from the southern shores of Connecticut and Rhode Island by the (roughly) east-west Long Island Sound.   The forecast is for New York City and areas along the Sound to suffer some of the worst effects of the hurricane.

GOES-13 was temporarily taken out of service in September and NOAA was going to replace it with an in-orbit spare (GOES-14), but was able to resolve the problem and return GOES-13 to operational status.