Novel storm cell tracking with multiple hypothesis tracking

The Multiple Hypothesis Tracking (MHT) algorithm is introduced as a centroid-based storm cell tracker for radar imagery. MHT improves upon current algorithms such as SCIT (Storm-Cell Identification and Tracking) and TITAN (Thunderstorm Identification, Tracking, Analysis, and Nowcasting) by addressing problems with detection drop-outs, false mergers, and spurious detections. This algorithm has been widely used in the field of video processing, and has now been adapted for storm cell tracking.

The design of the MHT algorithm is explained and the features that it provides are discussed in the context of addressing these inherent difficulties. MHT is demonstrated in a variety of scenarios using simulated and real data derived from radar imagery. Applications for both real-time and post-processing studies are discussed.