The operational network of WSR-88D radars provides digital Doppler data at six-minute intervals. This paper will focus on the development and implementation of radar dervied wind fields into the Hurricane Research Division's Real-time hurricane wind analysis system (H*Wind), a tool that produces surface (10 m) wind analyses using multiple data sources. H*Wind will be modified to include such wind fields when tropical cyclones are within range, typically 150-230 km from the radar. The wind fields will be generated automatically by the Ground-Based Velocity Track Display (GBVTD), a single-Doppler radar technique for tropical cyclones that can provide H*Wind with estimates of the inner-core wind field at altitudes above 0.5 km.

Reliable GBVTD analyses require accurate estimates of the vorticity center, which can be provided by the GBVTD-Simplex and the Principal Component Analysis single-Doppler methods. A statistical technique has been developed to select an optimal set of centers that will yield consistent wind fields in time. Before the GBVTD wind fields can be ingested in H*Wind, they must be converted to ground relative winds using estimates of the environmental mean wind. Another single-Doppler radar technique, the Hurricane-customized Extension of the Velocity Azimuth Display (HEVAD) method, can be used to estimate the environmental mean wind for use with GBVTD. We will show examples using Doppler radar data collected during Hurricane Danny (1997) as it was making landfall.