NOAA Office of Satellite and Product Operations

High Density Winds

The satellite derived winds (AMV- Atmospheric Motion Vectors) are generated by incorporating GOES and POES imager and forecast data from a numerical model. The principle of wind derivation is to follow a recognizable tracer (cloud and water vapor features in infrared window and water vapor bands) in a sequence of images, and derive its apparent velocity. The current operational wind products are derived from the following satellites: GOES East, GOES West, NOAA KLNN', MetOp-A, Aqua and Terra. The operational satellite derived winds are available in BUFR format.

Wind data is available in McIDAS MD file and ASCII formats via FTP.

GOES East IR High Density Winds
Example GOES High Density Winds Image