Five geostationary satellites, fixed 35,786 km above the equator, each image the same half of the Earth every 10 to 15 minutes. Laid side by side they cover the globe, except the polar regions. This page puts their images together, reprojected by their providers (NASA GIBS for GOES and Himawari, EUMETSAT for Meteosat), each shown where its satellite sees best. Colour composites are for seeing, not measuring: only the “Hourly world infrared” layer gives a value, the brightness temperature of cloud tops.
Infrared, every hour
Clouds over the whole planet
NOAA’s world mosaic merges GOES-West, GOES-East, two Meteosat and Himawari into one image per hour. The coldest, hence highest, clouds are in colour; warm surfaces fade into the Blue Marble. The poles stay bare: no geostationary satellite sees them.
- High, cold clouds
- Very cold storm tops (below −60 °C)
- Mid-level clouds
Latest image
11/3/26, 8:00 AM UTC
Satellites
5
Animation
73 h
Global Mosaic of Geostationary Satellite Imagery, longwave infrared (NOAA GMGSI) · U.S. Government work, public domain (NOAA Open Data Dissemination); NOAA requests attribution · 11/3/26
NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS): GOES-East, GOES-West (NOAA) and Himawari-9 (JMA) imagery, WMTS. · Published literature; cited
EUMETSAT EUMETView (Web Map Service): Meteosat-12 FCI, Meteosat (MSG) SEVIRI at 0° and Meteosat-9 over the Indian Ocean. Contains modified EUMETSAT Meteosat data 2026, CC BY 4.0. · Published literature; cited
Infrared brightness temperature (10.3 to 10.8 µm depending on the satellite) from NOAA’s GMGSI mosaic, converted to kelvin with the standard infrared curve, over NASA’s Blue Marble. Surfaces warmer than 285 K are transparent.
Explore the imagery: map, time, comparison
Freshness, satellite by satellite
The geostationary ring
A geostationary satellite turns with the Earth and always sees the same disc, in theory from pole to pole, but more and more obliquely towards the edges. The agencies share the equator between them: each region is shown here by the satellite that sees it most squarely.
| Satellite | Position | Imager | Full disc | Sector shown | Image access |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GOES-18 (GOES-West), NOAA | 137° W | ABI, 16 bands, 0.5 to 2 km | every 10 min | from -178.15° to -106° longitude | NASA GIBS (WMTS tiles, about 3 months online); NOAA NetCDF data on AWS |
| GOES-19 (GOES-East), NOAA | 75° W | ABI, 16 bands, 0.5 to 2 km | every 10 min | from -106° to -37.5° longitude | NASA GIBS; NOAA STAR (images, about 10 days); NOAA data on AWS (since October 2024) |
| Meteosat-12 (MTG-I1), EUMETSAT | 0° | FCI, 16 channels, 0.5 to 2 km (air masses: Meteosat MSG, SEVIRI) | every 10 min (MSG: 15 min) | from -37.5° to 22.75° longitude | EUMETSAT EUMETView (WMS, since September 2024), CC BY 4.0 |
| Meteosat-9, EUMETSAT | 45.5° E (Indian Ocean) | SEVIRI, 12 channels, 3 km (1 km high-resolution visible) | every 15 min | from 22.75° to 93.1° longitude | EUMETSAT EUMETView (WMS, since August 2020), CC BY 4.0 |
| Himawari-9, JMA (Japan) | 140.7° E | AHI, 16 bands, 0.5 to 2 km | every 10 min | from 93.1° to 181.85° longitude | NASA GIBS (JMA data via NOAA); data on AWS |
Beyond a 70° viewing angle (around 65 to 70° latitude), pixels stretch and clouds appear shifted towards the edge of the disc (parallax): a cloud 10 km high seen at 70° is displaced by about 25 km. No geostationary satellite sees the polar regions; only polar-orbiting satellites observe them.
Reading the layers
An infrared image measures radiance, converted to a brightness temperature: the temperature of a black body emitting as much. A colour (RGB) composite assembles several channels into red, green and blue to bring out a phenomenon: it is interpreted, not measured.
| Layer | What it shows | What it does not show | Coverage, frequency | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infrared (clouds, day and night) | Radiation around 10.3 to 10.8 µm from cloud tops, or from the ground under clear sky. The colder, the higher the cloud; the coldest tops, in colour, mark thunderstorms and cyclones. Day and night. | Not the air temperature near the ground. NASA’s and EUMETSAT’s palettes differ and are not published: no value to read here (see the hourly world infrared). | The whole ring up to about ±80°; one image every 10 min (15 min over the Indian Ocean), 20 to 40 min after the observation; 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Colour (day) and infrared (night) | By day, true colour (GeoColor, with a simulated green for ABI and FCI, which have no green band); by night, infrared: low clouds bluish, high clouds grey to white, city lights. | City lights are a fixed image (VIIRS), not an observation of the night. Over the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific, other renderings (see the notes). | GOES and Meteosat-12: day and night; Indian Ocean and Himawari: daytime only (black at night). | Coloured image |
| Air masses | Water vapour, ozone and infrared channels combined: red-orange, dry air sunk from the upper troposphere (jet stream, stratospheric intrusions); olive green, warm tropical air; blue-purple, cold polar air; white, thick high clouds. | Qualitative. Purple at the edge of the disc comes from the viewing angle, not from a cold air mass. | The whole ring, day and night; over Europe and Africa, Meteosat MSG (SEVIRI) every 15 min. | Coloured image |
| Dust | Differences between infrared channels that bring out dust: magenta-pink by day (purple at night for low dust), next to clouds (red, brown, black) and surfaces (blue). | Neither a concentration nor an optical depth. Moisture or a cold surface can look like dust. | GOES-West, GOES-East, Meteosat-12 and Meteosat-9, day and night; no Himawari layer (hatched). | Coloured image |
| Fires | Channels 3.9, 2.2 and 1.6 µm: small or cool fires appear red, the hottest yellow then white; burn scars brown. | A relative intensity, not a measured fire temperature. Mostly by day: at night only the 3.9 µm channel responds. | GOES-West, GOES-East and Meteosat-12 only; hatched elsewhere. | Coloured image |
| Hourly world infrared (values) | NOAA’s world mosaic (GMGSI): GOES-19, GOES-18, Himawari-9 and two Meteosat merged into one infrared image per hour, coloured with our scale. A click on the map gives the value. | The brightness temperature of cloud tops, or of the surface under clear sky: neither the 2 m air temperature nor the ground under the clouds. Coded on 256 levels (0.5 K steps above 242 K, 1 K below). | The globe between 72.7° S and 72.7° N, one image per hour about 40 min after the hour; 72 h kept. | Measurement |
| Band 1 · 0.47 µm (blue) | Reflectance in the blue: smoke, haze, fine dust, and true colour. Daytime only. Resolution 1 km under the satellite. | A reflectance rendered in grey levels: no value to read here, and nothing at night. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 2 · 0.64 µm (red) | Reflectance in the red, the sharpest band (500 m): cloud structure and evolution. Daytime only. Resolution 0.5 km under the satellite. | A reflectance rendered in grey levels: no value to read here, and nothing at night. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 3 · 0.86 µm (“veggie”) | Near infrared: vegetation (bright), water (dark), burn scars, land–water contrast. Daytime only. Resolution 1 km under the satellite. | A reflectance rendered in grey levels: no value to read here, and nothing at night. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 4 · 1.37 µm (cirrus) | Absorbed by low-level water vapour: shows only thin high cirrus. Daytime only. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A reflectance rendered in grey levels: no value to read here, and nothing at night. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 5 · 1.6 µm (snow/ice) | Ice and snow dark, liquid-water clouds bright: tells snow from low cloud. Daytime only. Resolution 1 km under the satellite. | A reflectance rendered in grey levels: no value to read here, and nothing at night. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 6 · 2.2 µm (cloud particle size) | Size of droplets and crystals at cloud top, hot spots of large fires. Daytime only. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A reflectance rendered in grey levels: no value to read here, and nothing at night. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 7 · 3.9 µm (shortwave window) | Short-wave infrared: fires (hot spots), fog at night, mixed with reflected sunlight by day. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 8 · 6.2 µm (upper-level water vapour) | Upper-tropospheric water vapour: jet streams, dry intrusions, waves. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 9 · 6.9 µm (mid-level water vapour) | Mid-tropospheric water vapour and its motion. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 10 · 7.3 µm (lower-level water vapour) | Lower to mid-level water vapour; volcanic SO₂ plumes. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 11 · 8.4 µm (cloud-top phase) | Cloud-top phase (ice or water) by difference with other bands; dust. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 12 · 9.6 µm (ozone) | Ozone absorption: dynamics near the tropopause. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 13 · 10.3 µm (“clean” longwave window) | The infrared window least affected by water vapour: clouds day and night, cloud-top temperature. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 14 · 11.2 µm (longwave window) | Classic infrared window: clouds day and night. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 15 · 12.3 µm (“dirty” longwave window) | More sensitive to water vapour: low-level moisture, volcanic ash and dust (by difference with band 13). Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Band 16 · 13.3 µm (CO₂ longwave) | Absorbed by CO₂: tropospheric temperature, cloud height. Day and night. Resolution 2 km under the satellite. | A brightness temperature (cloud top, water vapour or surface), not the air temperature at the ground. NOAA palette, no published scale here; borders drawn in by NOAA. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Sandwich (storms) | Visible texture (band 3) laid over infrared temperature (band 13): storm tops, overshooting tops and plumes above the anvils. | A visual aid, daytime only (no visible at night); no value. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), daytime, up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| Day/night cloud microphysics | By day, “Day Cloud Phase Distinction” (JMA): water clouds, ice clouds, snow; at night, “Nighttime Microphysics”: fog and low cloud, mid and high cloud. | Qualitative composite; NOAA says its daytime interpretation is still under investigation. The day–night switch shows at the terminator. | GOES-West and GOES-East only (Americas, eastern Pacific, Atlantic), up to an 80° viewing angle; one image every 10 min, about 15 min after the observation; about 10 days online, 24 h offered here. | Coloured image |
| GLM lightning over GeoColor | Density of flashes detected by the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (in-cloud and cloud-to-ground), over the GeoColor image. | Not a ground network: strokes are not located at their impact point, and nothing beyond 54° latitude. NOAA image, no value to read here. | GOES-West and GOES-East, between 54° S and 54° N; one image every 5 min; about 10 days online. | Coloured image |
| Derived motion winds (DMW) | Winds computed by tracking clouds and water vapour from one image to the next, as barbs over infrared (band 14). Red: 100–400 hPa (7 to 14 km); cyan: 400–700 hPa (3 to 7 km); yellow: below 700 hPa. | Only where a cloud or vapour feature can be tracked; the height assigned to each wind is the main source of error. One image per hour. | GOES-West and GOES-East; one image per hour; about 10 days online. | Coloured image |
Method and sources
Sectors cut halfway between the satellites’ longitudes (GOES-18 at 137° W, GOES-19 at 75° W, Meteosat at 0°, Meteosat-9 at 45.5° E, Himawari-9 at 140.7° E). GOES and Himawari layers: NASA GIBS WMTS tiles in Web Mercator; Meteosat layers: WMS images from EUMETSAT EUMETView, requested in Web Mercator; both providers reprojected the discs seen from the satellite. The available times are read from them (GIBS domains, WMS capabilities) and cached for 5 minutes by the site; for each sector the animation takes the latest image at or before the time shown (and at most one hour before). World infrared: NOAA’s hourly GMGSI NetCDF file (Mercator grid of 4999 × 3000 points), counts 0–255 converted to kelvin with the standard McIDAS and GEMPAK infrared curve (T = 330 − count/2 up to count 176, T = 418 − count above), cells with a non-zero quality flag dropped, block means on 2000 × 1199 points. Imagers: ABI (Schmit et al., 2017), AHI (Bessho et al., 2016), FCI (Holmlund et al., 2021); GeoColor: Miller et al. (2020). Geostationary viewing formulas: GOES-R product user guide (checked on its worked example).
Reading these data
Infrared shows the temperature of cloud tops, not of the air at the ground. Colour composites help interpretation; they are not measurements. Where sectors meet, colours change from one provider to the other and times differ by a few minutes. Towards the edge of the discs clouds are shifted (parallax) and stretched. GeoColor’s night lights are a fixed image. Images arrive 20 to 40 min after the observation, and a slot is sometimes missing.
The latest GOES image as seen from the satellite and the sunlit face of the Earth seen by DSCOVR are on the Earth from space page.
SOURCES OF THIS PAGE
- Schmit et al. (2017)
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Schmit, T. J., Griffith, P., Gunshor, M. M., Daniels, J. M., Goodman, S. J., & Lebair, W. J. (2017). A closer look at the ABI on the GOES-R series. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 98(4), 681–698.
· doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00230.1
Licence : Published literature; cited - Miller et al. (2020)
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Miller, S. D., Lindsey, D. T., Seaman, C. J., & Solbrig, J. E. (2020). GeoColor: A blending technique for satellite imagery. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 37(3), 429–448.
· doi:10.1175/JTECH-D-19-0134.1
Licence : Published literature; cited - Bessho et al. (2016)
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Bessho, K., Date, K., Hayashi, M., Ikeda, A., Imai, T., Inoue, H., et al. (2016). An introduction to Himawari-8/9 — Japan’s new-generation geostationary meteorological satellites. Journal of the Meteorological Society of Japan, 94(2), 151–183.
· doi:10.2151/jmsj.2016-009
Licence : Published literature; cited - Holmlund et al. (2021)
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Holmlund, K., Grandell, J., Schmetz, J., Stuhlmann, R., Bojkov, B., Munro, R., et al. (2021). Meteosat Third Generation (MTG): Continuation and innovation of observations from geostationary orbit. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 102(5), E990–E1015.
· doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0304.1
Licence : Published literature; cited - NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS): GOES-East, GOES-West (NOAA) and Himawari-9 (JMA) imagery, WMTS.
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NASA Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS): GOES-East, GOES-West (NOAA) and Himawari-9 (JMA) imagery, WMTS.
Licence : Published literature; cited - EUMETSAT EUMETView (Web Map Service): Meteosat-12 FCI, Meteosat (MSG) SEVIRI at 0° and Meteosat-9 over the Indian Ocean. Contains modified EUMETSAT Meteosat data 2026, CC BY 4.0.
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EUMETSAT EUMETView (Web Map Service): Meteosat-12 FCI, Meteosat (MSG) SEVIRI at 0° and Meteosat-9 over the Indian Ocean. Contains modified EUMETSAT Meteosat data 2026, CC BY 4.0.
Licence : Published literature; cited - Global Mosaic of Geostationary Satellite Imagery, longwave infrared (NOAA GMGSI)
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NOAA NESDIS OSPO, Global Mosaic of Geostationary Satellite Imagery (GMGSI) v3, longwave infrared: GOES-19, GOES-18, Himawari-9, Meteosat-10 and Meteosat-9 blended hourly.
· source page ↗
Licence : U.S. Government work, public domain (NOAA Open Data Dissemination); NOAA requests attribution · retrieved on Nov 3, 2026 · SHA-256 0c42f966071c…