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Europe’s meteorological satellite agency, EUMETSAT, and the European Space Agency (ESA) jointly released the image from the first satellite in the new generation of European weather satellites, Meteosat Third Generation – Imager 1 (MTG-I1).
MTG-I1 was launched on 13 December 2022. The image, captured by the satellite’s imager at 11:50 UTC on 18 March 2023, shows much of Northern and Western Europe and Scandinavia cloaked in clouds, with relatively clear skies over Italy and the Western Balkans.
Details it contains, such as cloud vortices over the Canary Islands, snow cover on the Alps and sediment in the water along the coast of Italy, are not as clearly visible, or not visible at all, in imagery from the instruments on the current Meteosat Second Generation satellites.
Crucially for Nordic countries, the image reveals a greater level of detail of cloud structures at high latitudes. This will enable weather forecasters to more accurately monitor the evolution of rapidly developing severe weather in that region.
“This remarkable image gives us great confidence in our expectation that the MTG system will herald a new era in the forecasting of severe weather events,” EUMETSAT Director-General Phil Evans said.
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