Preliminary Impact of HAMSR Temperature and Moisture Retrievals Obtained from the Global Hawk on Hurricanes Hermine and Matthew in Both GFS and HWRF

In previous work, the value of the Global Hawk (GH) on tropical cyclone prediction has been proven with the use of dropsonde observations. However, additional instrumentation exists on the GH that may provide added value to hurricane prediction. One of these sensors is the High Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), a microwave radiometer operating at 25 spectral channels that provides three-dimensional retrievals of temperature and specific humidity at 2 km horizontal resolution. Given the high temporal frequency of HAMSR (vertical profiles at every 1-2 seconds), the data are thinned by generating superobservations prior to assimilation into the Gridpoint Statistical Interpolation (GSI) system. Superobservations are generated by performing a weighted average of all available HAMSR observations within each scene of the flight track. At least two points are required to generate the superobservation. Additional consistency checks are performed to remove outliers. Preliminary results will be presented for hurricanes Hermine and Matthew in 2016. The NCEP GFS is cycled through all periods with HAMSR observations and is used to provide lateral boundary conditions for the HWRF experiments. The impact of HAMSR retrievals on tropical cyclone track and intensity forecasts in both GFS and HWRF will be presented.