European weather June 2012

A movie of weather over Europe during June, 2012. Natural Colour RGB images are taken from EUMETSAT's Meteosat-9 satellite in geostationary orbit 36,000 km above the Earth.

The Natural Colour RGB makes use of three solar channels: VIS0.6, VIS0.8 and NIR1.6. In this colour scheme vegetation appears greenish because of its large reflectance in the VIS0.8 channel (the green beam) compared to the NIR1.6 (red beam) and VIS0.6 (blue beam) channels.

Water clouds with small droplets have large reflectance at all three channels and hence appear whitish, while snow and ice clouds appears cyan because ice strongly absorbs in NIR1.6 (no red).

Bare ground appears brown because of the larger reflectance in the NIR1.6 than at VIS0.6, and the ocean appears black because of the low reflectance in all three channels.

See the full view of the Earth, as seen by Meteosat 9, here:

[szymusiek]

2012 was the year of the best weather in the worlds ever. Just sunny days, no clouds, blue sky all the time. There will be no such a weather again. Maybe for 100 years, in 2112.

[tonm]

...And July isn't looking any better...Rain, grey skies, Rain, dull -Below average temperatures - more rain, grey, rain, dull, grey, rain....and more rain....Sick of it!

Ireland was never a place of regular sun, but this is ridiculous - looks and feels more like early autumn. What's up with the Jet stream?