GOES single FOV total column ozone: Development and Initial Results

In this presentation, we discuss the development of the GOES Sounder total ozone derived product and show initial results of the application of this project to the problem of forecasting non-convective windstorms associated with intense mid-latitude cyclones.

Mesoscale "tropopause fold/stratospheric intrusion" features associated with intense cyclones have long been identified in upper-tropospheric analyses, but their connections to near-surface conditions are yet to be fully understood. For example, some stratospheric intrusions are able to convey ozone and strikingly low relative humidities all the way to the surface in the absence of intense near-surface dynamical features. Other episodes are associated with some, but not all, intense cyclones. Comparatively little research appears to have been devoted to relating the mesoscale folds/intrusions to vertical motion fields.

The relationship between downward vertical motion and mesoscale folds/intrusions appears to be of critical importance in understanding non-convective cyclone-generated windstorms. The dynamical features of interest for these wind events are on scales of tens of kilometers, evolve rapidly on the timescales of hours, and are located generally in the upper troposphere. As a result, the most promising GOES products for this approach appear to be the GOES Imager water vapor channel and the GOES Sounder total ozone derived product.

In the work presented here, we discuss our development of the GOES total ozone product and its use in diagnosing a stratospheric intrusion in a damaging non-convective windstorm across Wisconsin in November 2003. The initial 3x3 FOV of the total ozone product (implied horizontal resolution of 30 km) has been improved to 1x1 FOV (10-km resolution), providing unprecedented mesoscale detail for ozone features associated with cyclones. The November 2003 event, which caused $26.5 million in damage and 76-kt wind gusts, provides an excellent testbed for analyzing the performance of the GOES total ozone product and its ability to provide insight into the mesoscale structure of the storm. We will also discuss our results in conjunction with other recent satellite-based work on tropopause folds.