Radar Screenshots and GOES-19 Satellite in Snowball

Snowball gives you two ways to see what the atmosphere is doing right now: a radar screenshot pinned to the nearest WSR-88D station for your exact location, and GOES-19 satellite imagery covering the US, surrounding oceans, and beyond. Both commands work entirely inside Discord — no browser required.

Radar
Satellite

`/weather radar`

The radar command finds the nearest WSR-88D Doppler radar station to your location and returns a screenshot of the current scan. A View Interactive Radar button lets you open the live, interactive radar at radar.xtremewx.com for real-time animation and panning.

Radar coverage is limited to the United States. Snowball also requires a WSR-88D station within 150 miles of your location — areas farther from a radar site will not return an image.

Available layers

When you run /weather radar, you can choose a layer to change what the radar image shows. The default is Reflectivity.

Layer	What it shows
Reflectivity	Precipitation intensity — the standard view for seeing rain and snow
Velocity	Radial wind speed — useful for spotting rotation in thunderstorms
Hydrometeor Classification	The type of precipitation (rain, snow, hail, ice pellets, and more)
Rainfall (1 hour)	Estimated rainfall accumulation over the past hour
Rainfall (storm total)	Cumulative rainfall since the storm began

How to use it

Type the command

Enter /weather radar in any channel. Use Tab autocomplete to speed up location entry.

Enter a location

Type a city, state, or coordinates. Snowball finds the nearest radar station and fetches the latest scan.

Choose a layer (optional)

Select a layer from the dropdown. If you leave it blank, Snowball defaults to Reflectivity.

Open the interactive radar

Click View Interactive Radar in the response to open the live radar at radar.xtremewx.com, centered on your location.

The Velocity layer is especially useful during tornado warnings — inbound and outbound wind in a tight couplet can indicate rotation.

`/weather satellite`

The satellite command fetches the latest GOES-19 imagery from NOAA’s NESDIS CDN and posts it directly in Discord. You can choose a product (what the imagery highlights) and a region (which geographic area to show). Snowball can also infer the right region automatically from a location name or state.

Products

Snowball supports a wide range of GOES-19 products:

GeoColor (default)

True-color visible imagery during the day and multi-spectral infrared at night. The best all-purpose view for seeing cloud cover, storm systems, and overall weather patterns.

GLM Flash Extent Density (Lightning)

Lightning flash extent density overlaid on GeoColor. Shows where lightning is occurring across the field of view.

AirMass RGB

A multi-channel composite that highlights different air masses using infrared and water vapor bands. Useful for tracking fronts and upper-level dynamics.

Sandwich RGB

Infrared Band 13 blended with visible Band 3 for enhanced contrast on cloud tops and storm systems.

Derived Motion Winds

Wind vectors calculated from the movement of clouds and water vapor features. Available for CONUS and Full Disk views.

Day Night Cloud Micro Combo

Highlights cloud-top phase during the day and detects low clouds and fog at night.

Fire Temperature RGB

Designed to identify active fire hot spots and estimate fire radiative power.

Dust RGB

Detects and highlights tropospheric dust plumes.

Individual spectral bands (Bands 1–16)

All 16 ABI spectral bands are available, from visible blue (Band 1) through CO2 longwave infrared (Band 16). Each band highlights different atmospheric and surface properties.

Regions

You can specify a region directly, or let Snowball infer one from a location name or state abbreviation. Available regions include:

CONUS — Full continental United States
Full Disk — The entire Earth disk as seen by GOES-19
Meso M1 / Meso M2 — The two live mesoscale sectors (updated every minute)
Regional sectors — Northern Rockies, Upper Mississippi Valley, Great Lakes, Northeast, Southern Rockies, Southern Plains, Southern Mississippi Valley, Southeast, U.S. East Coast, Canada, Northern Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean, Gulf of America, Puerto Rico, Tropical Atlantic Ocean, Eastern Pacific Ocean, Mexico, Central America, and both northern and southern South America

How to use it

Type the command

Enter /weather satellite in any channel.

Choose a product

Select a product from the dropdown, or leave it blank to get GeoColor.

Choose a region

Pick a region, or type a location name (such as Texas or Chicago, IL) and Snowball will select the most appropriate regional sector automatically.

Choose image type

Select animation (an animated GIF loop) or still (the latest single frame). Snowball falls back to a still image if an animation is not available.

The GeoColor product on the CONUS view is a great default for a quick overview of ongoing weather across the country.

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Radar Screenshots and GOES-19 Satellite in Snowball

`/weather radar`

Available layers

How to use it

`/weather satellite`

Products

Regions

How to use it

​/weather radar

​Available layers

​How to use it

​/weather satellite

​Products

​Regions

​How to use it

`/weather radar`

Available layers

How to use it

`/weather satellite`

Products

Regions

How to use it