Tracking The Endless Summer Using Weather Satellite

Endless Summer Search Via Weather Satellite Imagery

Full disk satellite imagery IR Yesterday sitting here in South-Central Florida on a windy, sunny Sunday afternoon, as a wind surge behind the latest cold front had just moved through with gusty winds and much cooler temperatures, I was in need of some warm weather scenes. There was no football over the weekend, with the Super Bowl coming up this Sunday, so I have been surfing the satellite imagery websites and touring regions of the world looking for the summer season that I miss so much. Yes, while were all deep into our own winter weather patterns here in the northern hemisphere, summer is in full swing in the southern hemisphere south of the equator. Hot temperatures, daily sea breezes, convective afternoons thunderstorms, and tropical cyclones, are all taking place south of the equator. When looking at a full scan earth satellite view, you can clearly see the two seasons from the northern and southern hemispheres. If I ever won the lottery, I’d follow, or chase the endless summer season around the world, but for now I can only do it with satellite imagery and worldwide blogs from weather geeks around the globe.

Tropical Cyclone Fame Makes Landfall In Madagascar

Tropical Cyclone Fame 2008 - Madagascar In the Southwest Indian Ocean, off the southeast coast of Africa, Tropical Cyclone Fame made landfall early Sunday on the northwest coast of the large island nation of Madagascar. Over the weekend Cyclone Fame was much more disorganized, but overnight Saturday became much better organized and strengthened into a 90kt cyclone. Fame was a tight little compact storm, with a small core, and was producing strong winds and tropical heavy rain flooding over Madagascar. It is always interesting to watch southern hemisphere tropical cyclones as they rotate (spin) clock-wise, unlike hurricanes in the northern hemisphere that rotate counter clock-wise. The satellite presentation of Cyclone Fame was not all that impressive structure wise, but it was still nice to see a convective tropical system alive in the tropics some where in the world. Still a little over five months until the beginning of the 2008 hurricane season here in the Atlantic basin, so this about all the tropical storm activity I‘m going to see during the next couple of months.

South America - Brazilian Rain Season Underway

If you look further west across the South Atlantic Ocean over the continent of South America using weather satellite imagery, you can see the rainy and thunderstorm season is well established. As seen in this satellite picture, there are widespread thunderstorms and rain over the Amazon, surrounding rainforests and Brazil, ah yes, I can hear the tropical rains falling now. Although northern South America and Brazil’s climate has little seasonal variation since most of the continent and country is located within the tropics, it’s still nice to see on satellite all the thunderstorm activity south of the equator. How about a expedition in the Amazon?

South America, South Atlantic Hurricanes? Really?

Brazilian Nameless Hurricane 2004 - South Atlantic Satellite Image It’s quite rare to see tropical system, or even a hurricane off the eastern coast of South American and Brazil in the South Atlantic, but sometimes mother nature will surprise everyone. In March of 2004, a nameless hurricane developed in the South Atlantic off the coast of Brazil and then slammed into the Brazilian coastline on March 28, 2004. Not only is it very rare to see such a storm form in this part of the world, it’s very rare for such a storm to make landfall in Brazil. This was the first tropical cyclone to be tracked in the South Atlantic since satellites have been tracking storms over the last 40 years. Nothing out there this year, and the only tropical activity in the world right now is in the Indian Ocean.

Weather Satellite Imagery On The Net

Weather enthusiasts love to track worldwide weather using satellites, and traditionally weather satellite data was only available to research scientists, the National Weather Service and private organizations back in the day. Today the internet is loaded with freshly updated imagery for almost everywhere in the world. Below is a list of some of many of my favorite sites for tracking hurricanes and tropical cyclones worldwide, and Tornado Alley and Florida daily weather.

So, enjoy tracking weather via satellite imagery, there is a lot to see out there and learn and interesting features you can pick out of almost every image and loop. It’s a good way to keep track of ongoing weather pattern and developing storm systems. Weather satellite imagery is a very important tool I use daily when monitoring either a upcoming storm chase, tracking tropical storms and hurricanes, or just general weather.