Determining the Ability to Use Direct Broadcast System (DBS) Data to Forecast Severe Weather

We present preliminary results for determining if the direct broadcast system (DBS) received sounding data can be used to forecast severe weather. This study is important for Hampton Roads because severe weather is frequent in this area, and the DBS can lead to faster warnings. The DBS is located on top of the Harbor Center in Hampton, Virginia and collects data from satellites as they pass over. For this research, we focused on the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), and Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI). These three instruments provide sounding data that produces a vertical profile of the atmosphere. The sounding data is compared to different meteorological data sets. These data sets include radiosonde data, Rapid Refresh (RAP) model and High-Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model data, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Unique Combined Atmospheric Processing System (NUCAPS) sounding retrievals, Storm Prediction Center (SPC) storm reports, and Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) data. We use statistics to understand how well the soundings created from the DBS hyperspectral radiances compare to the radiosonde data, RAP, HRRR, NUCAPS retrievals, and SPC reports. We also combine ABI radiance derived sounding data to DBS sounding data to create a data set that has the high vertical resolution provided by the DBS hyperspectral radiance observations and the much better spatial and temporal resolutions provided by the ABI multispectral radiance observations. Our initial results show that the DBS closely matches the other meteorological data sets and combining the DBS data with the ABI data allows for more detailed and more frequent sounding data as required to improve severe weather predictions.