Hurricane Tracking Gets a Big Boost from New Satellites

When a hurricane is about to hit, time is of the essence. That’s why weather forecasters try to give people in affected areas as much advance notice as possible.

That effort will get a big boost this November. That’s when four units of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spacecraft known as the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-R) will be launched into space.

A GOES-R has many advantages over the satellites that currently track hurricanes. It has much better resolution, takes more images and employs the latest technology. (Current satellites can have technology that’s a decade old.) These improvements will give officials a better idea of how a hurricane is progressing—and who needs to be evacuated. A GOES-R also has the potential to transmit information about other life-threatening weather events like tornados, lightning storms and more.

Learn more about this new technology and what it could mean for you by reading the source article on bloomberg.com.