17 January 2018

GOES-16 Lightning Detector Spots Michigan Meteor

Posted by Dan Satterfield

My friend and superb meteorologist Paul Gross at WDIV has just posted some new info on the meteor last night in lower Michigan. It was loud, it rocked seismograms and it was even seen by an instrument on the GOES-16 weather satellite! Paul has a piece just posted with some cool info about this.

My first thought last night was if the Geostationary Lightning Mapper on the GOES-16 might have spotted it, and sure enough when I looked minute by minute, there it was! What an age we live in!

This is a perfect example of how broadcast meteorology means needing to have a wide knowledge of all Earth science. Paul was the first chair of the AMS Committee on Station Science and I was second. Mike Nelson in Denver is now chair and this AMS committee works hard to increase Earth science knowledge of meteorologists in TV beyond their main field of synoptic meteorology.