The movement and evolution of weather systems

Do you wish to study the movements and evolution of weather systems?

To do this, first click here, which you should give you a page supplied by EUMETSAT (the European Meteorological Satellite Agency).

On this page, you have a choice of geostationary satellites: METEOSAT 7 or METEOSAT 8, which are both over the equator near the Greenwich meridian, or METEOSAT 5, which is over the equator near 63°E. Simply click on the satellite box to choose your satellite and click on B&W or Colour to choose between black and white display or colour display.

You can also choose which satellite channel you wish to view. Remember that you will not see anything in night-time areas if you choose VIS 0.6.
For information about satellite images, click on satellite images from Dundee and how to interpret images.
The channel which corresponds most closely to the category called infra-red in daily weather reviews is IR 10.8.

Where you see Sector, choose Full disc if you wish to see the whole view from the satellite, D2 if you simply wish to look at the cloud and temperature patterns over Europe.

You can choose to have 6, 9, 12 or 24 frames in the animation and you can click through these frames by means of the arrows either side of the date box. To play the frames as an animation, click on Play and adjust the speed by means of Slower / Faster.

The animations show you how weather systems are moving and developing / decaying.

Notice with the IR 10.8 channel, the land becomes warmer by day, colder by night.
Notice with the VIS 0.6 channel that it’s dark at night-time!

Notice that the ITCZ tends to develop and decay more or less in situ. The cumulonimbus clusters of the ITCZ do not travel progressively as the fronts of mid-latitude depressions do.

Enjoy!