Reflections on 50 years of GOES
Tim Schmit has worked with the GOES satellite program since 1987 following the launch of GOES-7. Known as “The GOES Guy” for his expertise and enduring support, he has been a strong advocate of the satellite platform and spent his career working to improve its functionality, while educating others about its utility and the richness of the data collected by the satellite program.
Schmit began his career at the UW–Madison Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies and later transitioned to a role working with NOAA. He continued to collaborate closely with CIMSS researchers to improve each iteration of GOES that followed.
Schmit retired from NOAA in late 2024 and shared some of his reflections on the GOES mission and its far-reaching 50 years of operations.
What has GOES meant to you professionally?
I describe my career as covering GOES: Past, Present and Future. This has allowed me to work with many over the entire globe and all the corners of the United States. Each interaction, be it at international workshops or conferences, NWS trainings, and with broadcasters, private industry, teachers or students, has been an honor. When I was hired by CIMSS, it was to help prepare for GOES-8 and I didn’t stop helping with preparations and check-outs all the way through GOES-19 (mostly as a federal NOAA employee stationed in Madison). Working with CIMSS/SSEC colleagues, as well as NOAA, NASA and others, we were able to shape what the GOES-R (GOES-16) series became. As one watches a powerful hurricane or thunderstorm with GOES images every minute, that’s exactly what we envisioned decades earlier.
What is GOES biggest impact?
The greatest, most rewarding step was moving from GOES-15 (with data coming every 15 or 30 minutes, and with 4-8 km spatial resolutions) to GOES-16 that delivered full-disk scans every 10 minutes, contiguous US scans every five minutes, and small scale scans every 30 seconds — at spatial resolutions 4 times improved!
Years ago, after a powerful landfalling hurricane, the head of NOAA sent out an “everyone” email to thank all who helped monitor/forecast the storm. Many groups were rightly mentioned (NWS, NHC, aircraft, buoy center, etc.), but satellites were forgotten. At first this bothered me but then a wise colleague told me: “the fish is the last animal to notice the water.” Translation: The GOES images are so frequent and dependable; some can take them for granted.
The GOES-R program was one I started working on in 1999 and it was launched in 2016! The improved data helps not only many weather applications, but also transportation due to the impacts of fog, atmospheric turbulence, etc.
What interested you personally to pursue a career working with GOES?
When I was 13 years old living in Minnesota, I took an aptitude test, and one possible profession was meteorology. I was already interested in remote sensing – in the 2nd grade I wanted to be a pollution fighter. So, I started looking at schools and dreamed of getting a master’s degree in meteorology from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. (And that’s what happened). I couldn’t have asked for a better career.