National Hurricane Center Application of Super Storm Sandy Lessons Learned to Improve Operational Exploitation of Satellite Data (Invited Presentation)

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has continued to carefully study all aspects of the decision process of forecasting the landfall and intensity of Super Storm Sandy. Post-storm analyses showed the importance of the assimilation of polar soundings into the global numerical weather prediction models to accurately forecast the Sandy track and the ability of AMSR-2 to capture the detailed structures of the storm's eyewall and rainbands. Results from the application of these new types of capabilities to the 2013 Hurricane Season forecasts will be briefed. The briefing will contain information on how the NHC continues to work with the JPSS and GOES-R Proving Ground and Risk Reduction project teams to evaluate initiatives that determine how other types of satellite data can be brought into the NHC tropical cyclone forecast cycle. NHC seeks to exploit the increased use of satellite capabilities in their support to national, state, and local emergency managers. It is anticipated that these satellite data initiatives will prove to be invaluable to decisionmakers in their planning and guide their efforts to prepare the public for tropical cyclone landfalls.