Local Area Coverage (LAC) NOAA Polar Orbiting Satellite Observational Data

These are high resolution (1 km) recorded Local Area Coverage National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar orbiting satellite observations from a period in 2000 and from late 2003 to mid-2013. These are swaths recorded over the Antarctic or adjacent Southern Ocean. These are from the NOAA polar orbiting satellite series (NOAA-12 through NOAA-19, as those satellites were operationally available). The file name are the following:

For the 2000 period: yyyy_ddd_hhmm-LAC.ssdddhh.Z where yyyy is the year, ddd is the day of the year, hh is the hour and mm the minutes. The ss is the satellite (e.g. 12 for NOAA-12, etc.). e.g. 2000_183_0138-LAC1518301.Z.

For the 2003 through 2013 period: LACssdddhh(b) where ss is the satellite (e.g. 15 for NOAA-15, etc.), ddd is the day of the year, and hh is the hour. If there are two images with the same hour, the second image has a ‘b’ added to the file name e.g. LAC1636208 or LAC1600118b.