A team of scientists in the Bay Area just made predicting the weather a lot faster.
New weather satellite "Goes West," with instruments built at Lockheed Martin in Palo Alto. One of those instruments will be able to track lightning storms, tornadoes and other weather events, giving people much more advanced weather warning.
"This current series of weather satellites, the 'goes' series, is radically improved," said Samantha Edgington, Lockheed Martin chief scientist and system architect. "We have a lightning gauge which we never had before, so we can do a better job of detecting extreme weather ahead of time."
Built for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to track major weather events, the satellite’s data will help airplanes avoid lightning strikes as they fly and will determine how that data can be used to predict dangerous weather.
"The average warning time for a tornado across the U.S. is 13 minutes. Our goal is to double that," said Edgington, "to give people half an hour, even 45 minutes, to be able to prepare for a tornado."
Once finished, the satellite will undergo temperature and vibration testing in the Bay Area, before being shipped to Florida, to launch on board of a rocket.
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