The reliability of the ensemble transform technique and sophisticated ensemble based data assimilation techniques both rely on the real time availability of 20 member plus ensembles. Since the operational barotropic shallow water equation model (VICBAR) used at NOAA's Hurricane Research Division (HRD) gives relatively good hurricane track forecasts in tropical regions and since it only takes 12 minutes for it to produce one 72 hr forecast, the VICBAR model provides an appealing framework for generating large ensembles of tropical cyclone forecasts in real time. The talk will describe the results of tests of various ensemble generation techniques, the testing of ensemble transform methods for identifying optimal flight paths for synoptic surveillance missions during 1998 and, perhaps, the use of the ensemble in the assimilation of observations of deep layer mean winds directly into VICBAR