Therefore, cold clouds appear very bright while warm clouds are less visible. This thermal infrared measures the temperature of objects, and cold objects appear in a bright white.

But unlike your digital camera, the satellite can also take pictures at night, using infrared radiation. Why are there some clouds missing at night?ĭuring daytime the satellite can take high resolution photos of the weather using the wavelengths of visible light. The global satellite image has the maximum possible resolution as provided by the satellites, yielding an incredible 500 megapixels for the entire world. The global satellite composite is generated from 5 different satellites (METEOSAT, GOES-16, GOES-17, HIMAWARI, METEOSAT-IODC) and processed into an Earth-colour image for better readability. The satellite animation is a great tool to understand weather development and movement of clouds, and is often used by meteorologists for short term weather forecasting. The images can be animated to produce a minute-by-minute satellite view of the weather. New satellite observations become available every 5 to 15 minutes, depending on the location.

Weather satellite images ( Brazil) show the cloud cover.

Google satellite picture of my house