GOES-West orbits near the equator over the eastern Pacific Ocean. GOES-10 is the satellite forecasters in the Western U.S. rely on. It sends us pictures every 15 to 30 minutes on the location and movement of fog banks, thunderstorms and large storms over the data sparse Pacific Ocean. The pictures sent back to us from Weather Satellites are simply photographs taken from outer space. We get visible images during the daylight when the earth reflects sunlight back to outer space.
Visible pictures show the amount of light reflected back to outer space.
Snow pack over the Sierra Neveda during the Winter is another good reflector of sunlight. Clouds and atmospheric gases such as waters vapor radiate infrared energy to space. The amount of energy radiated by clouds and gasses relates inversely with its temperature . Since the atmosphere generally cools with height, a cloud that radiates low energy would be considered higher in the troposphere than a cloud that radiates higher energy. On a standard linear enhancement curve , bright white represent cold ice-crystal clouds while clouds colored with light shades of gray are warm water clouds in the mid and lower troposphere.