The forecast we get every day from our meteorologists rely heavily on satellites more than 22,000 miles above the earth's equator.
On Friday a new weather observing satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The satellite, GOES-T, will observe weather on earth, track space weather, and get the information needed to track dangerous weather like atmospheric rivers.
"There's just so many applications and so many improvements that this data is going to help, said Liz Kline, from NOAA. "Like the ability to detect atmospheric rivers. These can impact especially, you know, the Pacific Northwest, but also all the way down to Southern California. They can bring flash flooding and lots of other hazardous conditions. So it's critical that the National Weather Service has the advance notice of these systems in their development to be able to issue those watches and warnings."
This satellite is replacing GOES-West and will bring new capabilities to decision-makers battling natural disasters.
"It's not just the imagery, but then we can apply some additional information on top and create products for decision-makers so that we could maybe create like a dashboard that would help someone like an emergency manager in the field trying to track the line of a wildfire. We would be able to get them that information in the field right at their fingertips and they would be able to make decisions like that," said Kline.
After an on-time takeoff Friday afternoon the satellite will travel into orbit and will send back its first images in mid-May.
