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The weather research and forecasting (WRF) model and the maximum likelihood ensemble filter (MLEF) data assimilation approach are used to examine the potential impact of observations from the future Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, generation R (GOES-R) on improving our knowledge about clouds. Synthetic radiances are assimilated from the 10.35 μm channel of the GOES-R advanced baseline imager (ABI) employing a ‘non-identical twins’ experimental setup. The experimental results are examined for an extratropical cyclone named Kyrill that produced unusually strong winds, widespread damage and fatalities in Western Europe in January 2007. The data assimilation problem is especially challenging for this case, as there is a large error in the model-simulated radiances resulting from incorrect cloud location. Although this problem is difficult to eliminate, data assimilation results indicate the potential of GOES-R data to significantly reduce these errors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]