65th IHC Booklet/Program (pdf - 4.9MB) - Office of the Federal ...

Real-time radar processing in the 2010 Hurricane Season and plans for 2011
John F. Gamache
(John.Gamache@noaa.gov)
NOAA/AOML/Hurricane Research Division
During the 2010 Hurricane Season there were milestones achieved concerning the NOAA WP-
3D airborne tail Doppler radar (TDR) and its use to help initialize the Hurricane Weather
Research and Forecasting Model (HWRF). One milestone was the use of the data in the
experimental version of the HWRF model a number of times during the season. Another was the
first assimilation of data in a parallel run of the operational HWRF during Hurricane Tomas. To
accomplish the latter assimilation, several organizations worked to complete the construction and
test the operation of the data pipeline from the P3 TDR, consisting of the processing,
compression, and transmission of the quality-controlled Doppler-radial velocity data via the
Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) to NCEP Central Operations (NCO). We will report briefly
on the nature of this pipeline, and the success and problems encountered during the season in
processing Doppler data in real time. We will also discuss the future plans for the radar as the P3
radar processing system is changed from an older Sigmet RVP-5 system to the RVP-8 system.
Poster Session – Page 1