Examining Hurricane GPROF Rain Rates and Latent Heating Profiles and Relationships to Tropical Cyclone Rapid Intensification

A new passive microwave retrieval, Hurricane GPROF (Goddard PROFiling algorithm), has been developed for tropical cyclones in all global basins. This retrieval provides rain rates, hydrometeor profiles, and latent heat profiles, over an area significantly larger than the Precipitation Radar covers. This gives us the benefit of being able to include a much larger sample of passes and tropical cyclones for analysis of structure and intensity change, particularly rapid intensification. Rapid intensification remains a difficult challenge and accurately forecasting rapid intensity change is one of the top priorities designated by the National Hurricane Center. We will present on the initial examination of evolution of intensity in tropical cyclones as observed from both TMI and GMI and the implications for including this information in existing rapid intensification guidance.