U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service Research and Development Division

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The Vegetation Condition data selectable below are updated weekly and arranged by two week composite periods covering the 1995 - 1999, 2001-2003, 2004-2009, 2010, and 2011 (as available) crop seasons. A water vapor correction was applied by USGS to data collected by NOAA-14 from the 1995 through the 1999 crop season. Data from subsequent satellites (NOAA-16, NOAA-17) are not water vapor corrected. Ratio derived products of a specific period to a previous comparable date period are only created within images of the same satellite.

The NOAA-16 satellite collected images from the 2001 through 2003 seasons. NOAA-16 started malfunctioning in early 2004, when a scan motor problem caused a 'barcode' appearance. Images from the NOAA-17 satellite replaced NOAA-16 starting in 2004. The USGS released updated calibration coefficients for the NOAA-17 satellite developed by NOAA after the 2004 growing season. Images available below from the 2004 - 2009 growing seasons reflect the updated calibration coefficients. In February 2011, the AVHRR NOAA-17 sensor began having scan motor problems that affected data quality. Effective March 2011, NOAA-18 will be the new vegetative condition monitoring satellite. Animations of these images for a given year reveal how the vegetation condition changed during that growing season.