Automated tropical cyclone intensities utilizing objective Dvorak input to passive microwave algorithm

Infrared (IR) based Objective Dvorak Technique (ODT) intensity estimates of tropical cyclones are used to assist an automated method of extracting intensities using passive microwave imagery. Passive microwave digital data from the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) can often permit the analyst to view TC structure not feasible in IR or visible imagery. However, there are no current manual methods similar to the Dvorak scheme to relate SSM/I imagery to storm strength.

Efforts to use computer vision and neural networks to derive TC intensities from passive microwave data have reached a level of success, but are partially hindered by the relatively few polar orbiter passes. The new effort incorporates the more frequent ODT estimates as a first guess to the passive microwave technique in an attempt to reduce to image to image variability previously encountered. Examples during spanning the lifetime of several long-lived storms will be illustrated.