What are the differences between the images shown here?
Visible Image: An unenhanced visible image. Dark areas in a image represent geographic regions were small amounts
of visible light from the sun are reflected back to space. Whiter regions are objects that are highly reflective.
This image transitions to Channel 2 Shortwave IR (aka night visible) overnight.
IR Image: Channel 4 Infrared Imagery is
longwave infrared data. It is the easiest to understand since almost all of the energy in this portion of
the spectrum is emitted from either the earth or cloud tops.
All objects emit electromagnetic radiation, and the radiant energy measured by infrared radiometers is converted to a color
scale for you to see.
Water Vapor Image: These show how moist or dry the middle and upper atmosphere is. They also show the air circulation
in the middle and upper atmosphere. This image is produced by using the IR Channel 3 image with color enhancement
Color Enhanced: Color enhanced imagery is a method meteorologists use to aid them with satellite interpretation.
The colors enable a meteorologist to easily and quickly see features which are of special interest to them.
Tropical Floaters: These different channels are focused in on areas of interest and will follow current disturbance activity.
