On 28 August, the MTG-I2 (Meteosat Third Generation Imager-2) satellite lifted off from Europes Spaceport in Kourou aboard an Ariane 6 rocket, on the launchers ninth mission and its first flight to a geostationary transfer orbit. With this launch, ESA and Eumetsat complete the first operational trio in the Meteosat Third Generation constellation, positioned 36,000 kilometres above the equator to keep constant watch over the weather in Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa.
To understand what is really changing with this satellite, we spoke to someone who has spent decades interpreting satellite images in his daily work: Panos Giannopoulos, a meteorologist at the Hellenic National Meteorological Service (HNMS) and weather presenter at SKAI Media Group.
"When I started working 25 years ago, we only had one image every 30 minutes, with three channels; it was the first generation of Meteosat, launched two decades earlier," he recalls. The second generation, he explains, marked a clear difference: 12 channels and images every ten minutes - every five over Europe - which also made it possible to combine channels to detect fog, dust, volcanic ash and track the evolution of storms, from their birth until they dissipate.
