Fostering the Transition to Operations of Tropical Cyclone, Wind, and Cloud Satellite Products at NESDIS: A Brief State of Play

NOAA/NESDIS Tropical Cyclone, Wind, and Cloud level 2+ satellite products support a number of NOAA mission goals, such as: Hurricane Forecasts, Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP), Local Forecasts & Warnings, Ocean Prediction, Aviation Weather, Environment & Climate Studies, and other applications. The National Weather Service (NWS) is the primary NOAA Line Office (LO) user for these products, but their impacts extend far beyond NOAA. Going forward, this portfolio will be enhanced through algorithm improvements, satellite additions, and the introduction of new products. These enhancements will follow the NESDIS product portfolio management (PPM) mandate of investing in the transition to operations (T2O) of user-driven and value-added products. In the area of ocean surface winds, NESDIS is preparing for the ingest of partner agency products, such as NASA/SMAP winds, planned to be distributed for operational users in early 2024. NESDIS is also investing in the T2O of scatterometer-derived ocean surface vector wind products from the Oceansat-3/OSCAT (operational in 2024) and Metop-SG B1/SCA (~2026) satellites/sensors, respectively. These products should expand and provide operational continuity from the existing Metop-B/C ASCAT wind products, which are mission-critical for tropical cyclone and ocean prediction offices at NWS. Microwave-derived ocean surface wind products from GOSAT-GW/AMSR3 (~2024), and Metop-SG B1/MWI (~2026) are also planned for operational deployment. Moreover, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) ocean surface wind products from Sentinel-1A and RCM-1/2/3 entered operations in 2023, with additional sensors expected in 2024-2026 (e.g. NISAR, Sentinel-1C, Sentinel-1D). Radar altimetry wind products from Jason-3 are also in NESDIS’ plans (~2024). Atmospheric wind vectors (AMVs) are used for model data assimilation and forecasting purposes. During 2024, NESDIS plans to bring a Stereo Winds product that leverages two or more satellites to improve the detection and quality of AMVs. Tropical cyclone intensity products from the AI-based Advanced Dvorak Technique (AiDT) product as part of the ADT version 10.0 algorithm package will be operational in 2024. AiDT shows improvements in bias for TCs between strong tropical storm and category 1 hurricane intensity, and also extreme hurricanes at category 5 intensity. The Satellite Consensus (SATCON) is an algorithm package that collects or generates a number of satellite-derived tropical cyclone intensity estimates, and provides a single estimate that is generally more accurate than its individual member inputs. NWS is looking for an increased reliance on blended products, and SATCON is NESDIS' solution in the area of hurricane intensity. With T2O expected to begin in 2024, SATCON will provide great value to the NWS and partner agency users through an expected improvement in their ability to provide better satellite-derived intensity estimates. NESDIS is also planning to bring NASA/TROPICS near-real-time data to its operational system. TROPICS offers a high and unprecedented revisit rate of microwave data sensing that will enable improved tropical cyclone detection and forecasting. In the area of aviation weather, NESDIS plans to provide a brand-new Turbulence Probability product derived from geostationary satellites. Turbulence Probability will provide increased detection and accuracy of turbulence estimates at different flight levels, and for different aircraft size categories. Turbulence is a major hazard for the aviation community, especially the commercial and business sectors, with turbulence encounters resulting in serious injuries and even deaths onboard. An improved detection of turbulence will deliver necessary intelligence for decision making to both the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which manages the US National Airspace System (NAS), and the users of the airspace. Cloud products at NESDIS are also being improved through the use of AI/ML. NESDIS is invested in improving cloud detection of the different products that are presently available, beginning with cloud mask. Once implemented, forecasters will benefit from improved cloud detection, AMVs, and NWP model solutions.