Weather Services
Use the drop-down menu from the Weather tab to select service providers.
Satellite Services
Meteor
With the closing of NOAA APT Weather Satellite services (see NOAA below) the space weather community then looked for alternative solutions.The path I chose to investigate was the Russian Meteorological Service Meteor-M2 series satellites. In 2026 there are two operational satellites.
URL Links: Meteor-M2-3: [Everyday Astronaut] Meteor-M2-4: [Everyday Astronaut]
Satellite weather monitoring specialist USRadioGuy has some insights on receiving Meteor-M2 satellites.
The signal I collect is called LRPT for Low Rate Picture Transmission. It is a digital signal encoded as OQPSK whose data rate is sufficient for me to receive high quality signals.
The setup I use is:
Aerial:
Two-element horizontal V. Not as good as a quadrafilar helix (QFH), but a lot better performer than a one-element horizontal V. I get a good signal strength at low elevations (out towards the horizon) and reasonable signal strengths from overhead.
Receiver:
RTL-SDR software defined radio. This is a little headless receiver about the size of a large thumb drive. These devices are amazingly amazing and I love using them.
Computer:
A Linux Mint distribution on a headless server. The CPU is a quad core model Intel Celeron N3150 released in 2015, so it is a bit dated and low spec. However, it easily copes with this satellite data capture task. Using an SSD drive keeps it fast, low powered and quiet.
Software:
SatDump, running in its automatic collecting mode for Meteor satellite passes.
My antenna is low and between two buildings (Home Owner Association rules, sigh), so I tell SatDump to only record satellites that rise above 40 degrees elevation, therefore having strong signal strengths during most of their passes. As SatDump has no 'prepare a web page and post the images to a web server' capability I invent that myself using a bash script.
Morning satellite passes are southbound (heading over New Zealand going towards Antarctica) and display upright, normal-looking pictures. Afternoon passes are northbound (coming up from Antarctica and going towards the Pacific Islands and the equator). Those pictures appear to be upside down so I rotate them 180 degrees using ffmpeg. SatDump's false-colour mode is great - land looks green, sea looks deep blue, and clouds are various shades of white and grey. Land is outlined by a thin yellow line that shows through clouds, meaning I can always tell where New Zealand is in an image. I upload my image fies to this web server.
At launch Meteor M2-3 did not deploy its antenna correctly, so it is a bit mis-aligned. That means it's signals go up and down a bit during a satellite pass which can cause black bands across the pictures. Meteor M2-4 does not have this issue.
So to see the result of my labours, in the menu above click the Weather 'down arrow' and select 'Meteor WX.
NOAA
NOAA APT (Automatic Picture Transmission) information was transmitted at around 137.5 MHz, a reasonably easy frequency to copy with an omnidirectional aerial. For each scan line sent two side-by-side images were received which caused a characteristic 'tick-tock-tick-tock' cadence to be heard. The NOAA satellites are no longer in APT service.
NOAA 18: This satellite was urgently decommissioned on 6 June 2025. The satellite's planned 2 year mission lasted over 20 years. [Wikipedia: NOAA 18].
NOAA 15: This satellite was decommissioned on 19 August 2025. The satellite's planned 2 year mission lasted over 27 years. [Wikipedia: NOAA 15].
NOAA 19: This satellite was decommissioned on 13 August 2025. The satellite effectively wore out as its planned 2 year mission lasted over 16 years. [Wikipedia: NOAA 19].
These satellites lasted between 8 and 13 times longer than planned. StatsNZ say that in 2019 the lifespan of the average male Kiwi was 80 years. Therefore if I had a life as a NOAA Satellite could I expect to last between 640 and 1040 years?
These NOAA weather satellites have been iconic and their relatively accessible APT radio transmissions have been downloaded by many school classes (and interested radio enthusiasts) as they learn about satellites and space.
Congratulations to three wonderful satellites - you leave a gaping hole in the 'weather from space' world which has us enthusiasts scrambling for alternatives. Here is my last image from NOAA 15 on 16 August (NZDT) during its afternoon pass over New Zealand.
NOAA 15 Last Pass Over NZ NOAA 15 on 16 August 2025, coming up from
Antarctica and heading north towards New Caledonia.