NEXRAD in space and its potential impact on tropical cyclone simulation

NEXRAD in space (NIS), a 35 GHz Doppler radar, would be the first satellite instrument with the specific mission objective of observing tropical cyclones from geostationary orbit. Using the University of Wisconsin Nonhyrostatic Modeling System (UW-NMS) and an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF), a series of observing system simulation experiments (OSSE) are conducted to evaluate the NIS instrument's potential impact on both the analysis and forecast phases of tropical cyclone simulation. Results indicate that a reduction in grid-averaged root-mean-square error (RMSE) of from 40 to 80 percent is possible over the analysis window, with somewhat less dramatic (though still significant) improvement over the duration of the forecast.