Quantifying High Temporal and Spatial Forecast Improvements Attributable to Radio Occultation and IR Imagery Data in HWRF

As new microwave and radio occultation techniques yield higher spatial and temporal sounding measurements for water vapor, temperature, and pressure, short and long-range operational weather forecasts are expected to improve. The improved forecast capabilities of ingesting increasingly more soundings have yet to be fully quantified. As models ingest higher cadence space-based observations, with higher vertical resolution down to lower altitudes, infrared radiometers have the temporal and spatial resolution to validate those improvements.

This paper presents results from an investigation of hurricane cyclogenesis and intensification, while quantifying forecast skill improvements attributable to the high temporal and spatial resolution of radio occultation data and validating with infrared observations. The Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model has been implemented with the capability of assimilating radio occultation data for four cases of cyclogenesis and intensification. Hindcast runs demonstrate the assimilation approach of this high cadence data. The Dvorak technique is used with Himawari data to asses higher cadence forecast improvements.