  A suite of products has been developed and evaluated to assess hazards
presented by convective downbursts to aircraft in flight derived from the
current generation of GOES. The existing suite of GOES microburst products
employs the sounder to calculate risk based on conceptual models of favorable
environmental profiles for convective downburst generation. Accordingly, a
diagnostic nowcasting product, the Microburst Windspeed Potential Index, is
designed to infer attributes of a favorable microburst environment. In
addition, a GOES-West imager microburst algorithm that employs brightness
temperature differences between band 3 (upper level water vapor), band 4
(longwave infrared window), and split window band 5 has been developed to
supplement the sounder-derived products. This paper provides an updated
assessment of the sounder MWPI and imager microburst algorithms, presents case
studies demonstrating effective operational use of the microburst products, and
presents validation results for the 2008 convective season over United States
Great Plains and Great Basin regions.
