Infrared imagery is one of three types of weather satellite imagery (including visible, infrared, and water vapor). Black, white, and shades of gray are used to represent temperatures from the tops of clouds and the land & water surfaces on Earth. Black is the hottest temperature; white is the coldest.
A brief description of the interactive image says (incorrectly) "The images are created every three hours ..." — the images are actually updated every hour. Times are expressed in Universal Time Coordinated (UTC).
Have fun exploring the interactive infrared image. Then you might want to try animating a time series of non-interactive images.
Tech Tips
The interactive infrared [weather] satellite image was tested using my Apple iPad mini 2 and 6, Apple MacBook Air (13″, M1, 2020), and Apple iMac desktop computer (vintage 2009) and is compatible with all of those devices.
Did you notice both the non-interactive and interactive infrared images are GIF files? "GIFfun" is a free application that can be used to animate the non-interactive infrared images, thereby creating a time lapse "video" of the Earth as seen from space. Animations enable the viewer to determine the direction and speed weather systems are moving.
A 10-hour time series of non-interactive images was used to create the following animated GIFs. Notice the large scale mid-latitude wave cyclone moving from west to east across the central United States of America.
The default "Delay Time" ("the display time for each frame, in seconds") is 0.1 s, resulting in a faster version of the animation.
 |
| Faster version. |
 |
| Slower version. |
The following screenshot shows the settings for GIFfun that were used to create the slower version of the animation, shown above. Notice the "Delay Time" was doubled from 0.1 s to 0.2 s.
 |
| GIFfun default settings. |
Which version looks better? You decide.
Related Resources
- AMS interactive infrared [weather] satellite image – the American Meteorological Society (AMS) and the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- AMS Weather Satellites Teacher's Guide [PDF]
- Interactive infrared weather satellite image - a blog post by Walter Sanford
- AMS Interactive Infrared Weather Satellite Image – Making the Invisible Visible. A resource rescued from the Wayback Machine Internet Archive. I created this activity as an extra credit opportunity for my Grade 8 Physical Science students when we were studying energy and energy transformations. In retrospect the activity is probably too long to use “as is,” but it might serve as a data bank of questions that teachers could use to create their own version of the activity. For non-educators, the activity questions can help to guide your thinking about what you can tell from the interactive infrared imagery.
- UTC/EST/EDT – a table listing equivalent times among Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), Eastern Standard Time (EST), and Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), rescued from the Wayback Machine Internet Archive
- Weather Calculators, including temperature conversion – a page of interactive calculators that still work, also rescued from the Wayback Machine Internet Archive
Copyright © 2026 by Walter Sanford. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are invited and wlecome.