Swell-Forecast.com - European SURF forecasting

Satellite images

These are snapshots of the Earth taken by a special camera aboard the satellite. Obviously they are observations and not predictions. Each type of camera is designed to pick up different sorts of radiation emitted from the Earth’s surface, which will give us different information.

The two types of images included here are visible and infrared (IR). The visible image is exactly what the human would see, and is useful for picking out any cloud formations (white masses) heading our way. The IR image, on the other hand, shows the amount of heat emitted from the Earth, hotter areas showing up dark. This is mostly useful for comparing the temperature of different areas on the land, rather than the sea.