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When I travel or when I want to go to the beach or go hiking I like to know what the weather is going to be like around the area I plan to go to. I like to know if it is going to be foggy or overcast. So I like to look at satellite weather images of the clouds. For doing this I have found that our local news channel KSBW 8 has some of the best satellite images. However, they actually get the images from another site called http://www.ibsys.com/. But ibsys.com doesn't display their images on their site; they lease the images to different TV station websites. You can see a list at: http://www.ibsys.com/sites/index.html Infrared Satellite But the site I go to check the clouds is: http://www.theksbwchannel.com/weather/ Once you get there look on the right side of the web page for "Maps and Radar" and click on "U.S. Satellite". This will show you the clouds over the whole United States. For my area, I like to pull down from the menu choices "S. California Satellite". If I want to see the progression of the clouds I select "S. California Satellite Loop". It shows you the movement of the clouds over the past three hours. From this I can tell what beaches will be sunny or what hiking areas will be sunny, whether the Big Sur coastline or Santa Cruz. Here is a direct image of the "S. California Satellite":
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Infrared Satellite Loop
Here is a direct image of the "S. California Satellite Loop":
Visible Satellite
But wait. Don't stop reading yet and think that these images are always going to be accurate. You may notice that sometimes this satellite picture shows a blue sky in your area when it is overcast or foggy. That is because the above satellite images are "infrared" satellite images. Infrared is good for showing up most clouds and fog and hurricanes. However sometimes you need to look at a visible satellite picture to tell you a more accurate story. Here are the best visible satellite websites I could find:
http://sat.wrh.noaa.gov/satellite/1km/ - Shows you a visible satellite picture of over 20 major ares in the U.S. including Monterey, and Los Angeles, CA.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/satellite/ - This site gives you even more visible satellite options for the western half of the U.S.
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/ECIR4.html - This site shows a color enhanced infared image of the mid-west and eastern U.S.
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/ - Here you can choose between infared and visible images of Western U.S., Eastern U.S., Alaska and Hawaii.
Here is a direct visible satellite image of S. California:
Visible Satellite Loop
Here is a direct visible satellite loop of S. California:
Radar
Now let's find out where it is raining on the central coast or in Big Sur. A RADAR display can show water in the air. So the green parts over the land is where it is probably raining:
Wind
To find out if it is windy in your area of the United States you can go to one of the following sites. Click on your region of the United States to see the current wind speeds. Then click on the play button to see an animation of the wind speeds for the past few hours:
http://www.iwindsurf.com/windandwhere.iws
Temperatures
Go to the following link to get current temperatures and weather conditions for many areas: http://www.met.utah.edu/droman/states/CA_state_frame.html
If you are having a hard time understanding what areas you are looking at then I suggest that you look at a map of the area at the same time until you understand. To help you understand the area's for the above satellite I overlaid a yahoo map on top of the satellite image. I did this on October 21, 2005 though, so it is NOT a live image:
And here is a zoom in of the bay area with a yahoo map overlaid. Again this is NOT a live satellite image:
Here is another zoom in of just the Monterey Bay area with yahoo map overlay taken on Oct. 21, 2005:
