Real-time airborne analysis of aircraft data supporting operational hurricane forecasting

Abstract

Many of the workstation analyses are in storm-relative coordinates that depend upon interactive identification of the cyclone center from the radar reflectivity data. Displays of the lower fuselage radar reflectivity, composited for 1-2 h, provide an overall perspective of the horizontal patterns of precipitation and a framework for interpretation of thermodynamic and kinematic observations. The workstation runs algorithms for estimation of the horizontal wind field in the hurricane core using radial velocities measured by the airborne Doppler radar during one or more penetrations of the storm center. Interactive software also supports real-time processing of ODW wind and thermodynamic data, objective editing of bad data, and automatic dissemination of mandatory and significant-level data in the standard dropwindsonde code. -from Authors