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Full catalog/hs3cimsscth
hs3cimsscth·v1·dataset

Hurricane cloud-top heights from aircraft missions (HS3)

Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) Cloud Top Height V1
atmosphere NASA GHRC_DAAC Level 4 PNG
In plain English

What it measures. Images of cloud-top heights over hurricanes and severe storms, showing how high the storm clouds reached.

How it's made. Derived from infrared observations by the GOES-15 and METEOSAT-10 weather satellites using a cloud-height algorithm, produced for NASA's HS3 hurricane field campaign in 2014.

How & where you'd use it. Helps scientists study hurricane formation and intensification, including the role of Saharan dust and deep convection. A focused dataset tied to a specific field campaign.

What's measured

Atmosphere › Clouds › Cloud Properties › Cloud Top Height

Coverage & cadence

  • Time span2014-08-14 → 2014-10-03
  • Measured byGOES-15 (GOES-15 Imager) · METEOSAT-10 (SEVIRI)
  • Processing levelLevel 4
  • Spatial extent-180, 12, -60, 52
  • FormatsPNG
  • StatusCOMPLETE

What you can do with it

  • Map air pollutants — NO₂, aerosols, ozone
  • Track greenhouse gases and Earth's energy budget
  • Feed weather and air-quality analysis
Official description

The Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) Cloud Top Height dataset contains could top height images obtained from infrared observations of the 15th Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES-15) and the 10th Meteorological Satellite (METEOSAT-10) using the Algorithm Working Group (AWG) Cloud Height Algorithm (ACHA) for the Hurricane and Severe Storm sentinel (HS3) field campaign. Goals for the HS3 field campaign included assessing the relative roles of large-scale environment and storm-scale internal processes, addressing the controversial role of the Saharan Air Layer (SAL) in tropical storm formation and intensification, and the role of deep convection in the inner-core region of storms. The images are available for dates between August 14, 2014 and October 3, 2014 at 15 minutes intervals in PNG format.

Get the data

hs3cimsscth_access.py
import earthaccess
earthaccess.login(strategy="netrc")          # free Earthdata Login

results = earthaccess.search_data(
    short_name="hs3cimsscth",
    version="1",
    bounding_box=(-122.5, 37.2, -121.8, 37.9),  # your area (W,S,E,N)
    temporal=("2024-01-01", "2024-12-31"),       # your dates
)
files = earthaccess.open(results)   # stream straight from GHRC_DAAC
Browsing CMR needs no login. Downloading or streaming bytes needs a free Earthdata Login + the earthaccess package.