An Investigation of Extreme Wind Events in Extratropical Cyclones Using Innovative Satellite Techniques

Many intense extratropical cyclones are associated with stratospheric intrusions and contain non-convective severe winds, which can have devastating societal and economic impacts. These localized, high surface wind events are extremely difficult to forecast due to the limited areal coverage and brief nature. Current weather forecast products seldom offer the information needed to issue severe wind warnings in advance with much certainty. The purpose of this study is to investigate a new forecasting technique that uses the RGB Air Mass product developed by the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) using the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) on the Meteosat-9 satellite. This product can identify stratospheric intrusions that are associated with extratropical cyclones, which may indicate hurricane force winds at the surface. To evaluate this technique, this research analyzed three different extratropical cyclones with severe surface winds using satellite and reanalysis data. The ultimate goal of this project is to demonstrate to operational meteorologists how the new RGB Air Mass product, which will be available from the Goestationary Operational Environment Satellite R-Series (GOES-R) when it is launched in 2015, will improve forecasts of these events.