Hurricanes which impact the gulf coast of the United States have great potential for destruction. The presence of high ocean heat content in loop current eddies and a coastline fringed by broad continental shelves create a setting that could, in any given season, support an intense hurricane and accompanying devastating storm surge. The imperative for accurate, timely forecasts of these storms is thus manifest.

In that regard, data assimilation techniques may be expected to play a role of increasing importance in the coming years. In particular, a large – and ever growing – volume of conventional and innovative observation types will need to be processed and combined with high-resolution numerical weather prediction (NWP) model forecasts to produce optimal estimates of both the hurricane and its environment. One such innovation in observing technology is offered by NEXRAD in space (NIS), a proposed Ka-band Doppler radar in geostationary orbit.

In order to demonstrate the impact NIS might have on forecasts of Gulf hurricanes, observing system simulation experiments (OSSE) will be conducted for several storms of note, including Katrina (2005) and Lili (2002). Recent developments in ensemble data assimilation allow observation impact on different aspects of the forecast to be determined in a systematic manner; such a technique will be employed to determine to what degree NIS reflectivity and Doppler radial velocity serve to improve forecasts of track and intensity. In addition, the impact relative to extant data types will also be analyzed.