The ocean surface wind vector retrievals from the National Aeronautical and Space Administration's (NASA) SeaWinds scatterometer on QuikSCAT promise to greatly improve upon the ocean surface information currently available to the operational marine forecasting community. The impressive 1800km-wide swath coverage and 25km resolution of SeaWinds wind vector retrievals are a vast improvement over other currently available ocean surface wind vector measurements. The wide coverage and over two year continuity in data makes QuikSCAT the first operationally useful satellite wind vector data stream. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS) has the responsibility for the near real-time processing and distribution of ocean vector wind data from QuikSCAT/SeaWinds to the operational weather centers. An overview of QuikSCAT and NESDIS' QuikSCAT operations in addition to those planned for SeaWinds on Japan's second Advanced Earth Observation Satellite (ADEOS-II) are presented.

In addition to operational processing and distribution of wind vector data from SeaWinds, NESDIS is a member of NASA's Ocean Vector Wind Science Team and participates in validation and wind retrieval algorithm development work. In an operational forecasting environment, an understanding of a measured quantity's capabilities and limitations is just as important as its timeliness. With the operational community now regularly utilizing QuikSCAT data, fully understanding its performance characteristics in adverse weather situations such as tropical cyclones has become important in maximizing the use of this data. Several outstanding issues that are being studied include: -How high of a wind speed can be retrieved and with what uncertainties? -When can "rain-flagged" wind retrievals still be used? -What is the influence of the initialization wind field used in the ambiguity removal process? -Why does the chosen wind field sometimes fail to resolve surface circulation in tropical cyclones?

While the primary mission of scatterometers is the measurement of the ocean vector winds, recent work by the Microwave Earth Remote Sensing (MERS) Laboratory at Brigham Young University has shown some additional uses for scatterometer data. MERS has developed a resolution enhancement processing scheme that permits high resolution imagery of the earth's surface to be obtained. These daily images of surface roughness are proving especially useful for sea ice monitoring, and hold promise for use in tropical cyclone monitoring and land classification work.