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Ibadan, 8 May 2023. – Europe’s latest weather satellite, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager, has just delivered its first view of Earth – revealing conditions over Europe, Africa and the Atlantic in remarkable detail.
Launched on an Ariane 5 rocket on 13 December 2022, the Meteosat Third Generation Imager-1 (MTG-I1) is the first of a new generation of satellites to revolutionize weather forecasting in Europe. As a result, ESA and Eumetsat are proud to jointly release the new image from the next generation.
The image, which the satellite’s Flexible Combined Imager captured on 18 March 2023, shows much of Northern and Western Europe and Scandinavia blanketed in clouds, with relatively clear skies over Italy and the Western Balkans.
ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programs, Simonetta Cheli, said, “This image is a great example of what European cooperation in space can achieve. The level of detail MTG-I1’s image reveals, unachievable over Europe and Africa from a geostationary orbit until now, will give us a greater understanding of our planet and the weather systems that shape it.”
Phil Evans, Director General at Eumetsat, added, “This remarkable image gives us great confidence in our expectation that the MTG system will herald a new era in the forecasting of severe weather events. Evans also added, “That additional detail from the higher resolution imagery, together with the fact that images will come more frequently, means forecasters will be able to more accurately and rapidly detect and predict severe weather events.”
