Q-Winds satellite hurricane wind retrievals and H*Wind comparisons

This paper presents a new hurricane ocean vector wind (OVW) product known as Q-Winds, which is derived from the SeaWinds scatterometer active/passive measurements on QuikSCAT. This product uses a unique scatterometer retrieval algorithm especially developed for tropical cyclones. SeaWinds (passive) Ku-band brightness temperatures infer the simultaneous and collocated atmospheric (rain) attenuation, which is used to correct the active (radar) ocean surface backscatter. Also, this algorithm incorporates a new geophysical model function, derived from both airborne and satellite sigma-0 measurements in hurricane conditions, to correct the retrieved wind speeds. SeaWinds OVW retrievals are presented for ten hurricane passes with near-simultaneous aircraft under flights with Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) and GPS dropsondes surface wind measurements. Independent H*Wind surface OVW analyses are provided by the NOAA Hurricane Research Division; and these results are compared with Q-Winds and the standard SeaWinds Project L2B wind vector products.