Updates to a Global Microwave Tropical Cyclone Archive

At the 2004 AMS Hurricane and Tropical Meteorology meeting, we presented a newly developed near-real time tropical cyclone web interface and data archive. The interface was designed to enhance the usability and understanding of the scatterometer data interpretation by integrating SSM/I rain rates and microwave SST data into the display of scatterometer winds. Usage statistics show this interface has been highly valued over the years by tropical cyclone researchers, students, and cyclone enthusiasts within the general public. However, with the recent loss of QuikScat, it became necessary to redesign the background system that produced the images for the archive. New data have been added in addition to the radiometer sea surface temperatures and rain rates already included. WindSat wind vectors are now included in the archive. These winds are derived using a new wind vector retrieval algorithm that makes use of WindSat C-band frequencies to obtain wind speeds and directions in the presence of rain. In addition, we include a SSM/I 85 GHz PCT calculated using the highly intercalibrated REMSS SSM/I data set. We will describe each of these data sets in our talk. The archive has been extended back to 1997 when TRMM launched and microwave sea surface temperatures first became available (it previously started in 1999 with the launch of QuikScat). This important archive continues forward in near-real time and provides the community with a useful graphical tool for exploring various microwave data products within the tropical cyclone environment. Historical data images have been processed using the new IBTRACS data set for storm locations. In real-time, we use the ATCF location, intensity, and forecast values obtained roughly every hour by FTP from the Naval Research Lab-Monterey. Examples from the new web interface will be shown in the presentation.