Do soundings from hyperspectral sounder flying in the early morning benefit convective forecast?

With S-NPP/NOAA-20/NOAA-21 flying in early afternoon orbits, METOP satellite series flying in mid-morning orbits, the FY satellites fill in the orbital gaps with FY-3D 30 minutes after NOAA-20 and FY-3E in the early morning orbit. The FY-3 satellites carry the Hyperspectral Infrared Atmospheric Sounder (HIRAS) and Micro-Wave Temperature/Humidity Sounder-2 (MWTS-3 and MWHS-3) which are similar to CrIS/ATMS and IASI/AMSU class of advanced satellite sounding suites. NOAA NWS field offices are provided with two-orbit coverage (9:30 and 13:25) of NUCAPS sounding profiles that are used routinely to assist forecasters in monitoring and forecasting short life cycle convective storms. The FY-3D/3E soundings will mitigate the significant gaps that limit the forecasters’ ability to monitor and near-cast the short-lived convective storms. This work will build upon the NOAA Hyper-Spectral Enterprise Algorithm Package (HEAP) software. Since HIRAS-2/MWTS-3/MWHS-3 are similar to CrIS/ATMS, modifications will only be made to NUCAPS’s instrument dependent components. This includes data ingest, data quality control, channel selection for HIRAS-2, microwave and infrared tuning coefficients, and statistical retrieval to name a few. Performance of retrieved FY-3E soundings using the modified NUCAPS will be presented. In addition, case studies showing the benefits of having soundings from the early morning orbit will be presented and will help communicate the need for a U.S. mission of hyperspectral IR soundings in both early morning and geostationary orbits.