Himawari-8 AHI Data Assimilation impact on Hurricane Dujuan with HWRF

The Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) currently onboard Himawari-8, which is the first among next-generation geostationary meteorological satellites, became operational at Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) in 2015. AHI is a state-of-the-art 16-band radiometer with spectral bands covering the visible, near-infrared and infrared portions of the electro-magnetic spectrum with four times the spatial resolution and much faster coverage compared to instruments on earlier Himawari-7 (or Multifunctional Transport Satellite-2). Utilization of this data at full resolution (i.e. spatial, temporal and spectral) leads to generation of wind products with increased data counts and significantly improved geographic coverage that results in substantial increase in volume of information. Efforts are currently ongoing to assess the impact of Himawari-8 AHI data on the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast System (HWRF). In this study, AHI satellite data assimilation impacts on HWRF model forecasts of Typhoon Dujuan in September 2015 are investigated. A preliminary assessment of the assimilation of AHI data from infrared water vapor channels and atmospheric motion vectors (AMVs) with the current HWRF system shows that AHI data assimilation benefits the analysis of hurricane asymmetry, especially in a shear environment, and leads to a better track forecast.