On April 1, 1960, the world’s first operational weather satellite was launched into space. It opened a new world of information to meteorologists since it could see the weather in areas where there were no surface observations, such as over the oceans and the poles. Now the vast majority of weather observations input into forecasting models come from satellites. That has vastly improved our ability to make accurate predictions about the weather and has allowed us to see threats like hurricanes over sea long before they get near coastlines. You can see a fascinating storymap about the history of weather satellites with lots of pictures at https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/3ed6b70ffa80447aac3fcb1d3378884a.
