A Multi-Month TOVS Case Study over Oklahoma

To assess the quality of wind, temperature, and moisture information from NOAA satellite soundings an analysis is being carried out using the TOVS Analysis Package (TAP) and the International TOVS Processing Package (ITPP) 5.0. Those parameters deemed to be accurate enough within a particular region of the atmosphere would potentially be used as inputs to a mesoscale model (under development at the Army Research Lab). The TAP (which is SeaSpace Corporation proprietary software) and ITPP 5.0 were both developed by the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin. The study area chosen is the Oklahoma region due to the availability of data from 4 wind profiling radar sites providing data up to 17 km. The Norman, Oklahoma sounding serves as truth for the temperature comparisons as well as for the wind and moisture analyses. Analyses using ITPP 5.0 initialized with surface data, model-forecast profiles, and AVHRR data will be shown. Analyses have been carried out for May and June of 1998 and additional profiler and raob data is being sought so this case study can be extended.