Targeting Strategies to Improve Hurricane and Typhoon Forecasts

NOAA/OAR Joint Hurricane Testbed, 2003-2005 Dr Sharanya J. Majumdar (UM/RSMAS/MPO) Dr Sim D. Aberson (NOAA/AOML/HRD) Dr Zoltan Toth (NOAA/NWS/NCEP EMC) Dr Brian J. Etherton (UNC Charlotte) Mr Paul Leighton (NOAA/AOML/HRD) Mr James Franklin (NHC/NOAA/NWS/TPC) Dr Chun-Chieh Wu (National Taiwan Univ.)

The primary purpose of operational synoptic surveillance missions (using the NOAA Gulfstream G-IV jet aircraft) is to deploy targeted GPS dropwindsondes in the environment of a tropical cyclone, to improve 1-3 day forecasts of the cyclone's track and intensity. The targeted observations are presently selected subjectively, based on the variance distribution of an ensemble forecast. The goal of our work is to develop an objective targeting strategy, entitled the Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (ETKF), for use in improving tropical cyclone track and intensity forecasts.

In addition to testing the ETKF for Atlantic Basin tropical cyclones, it is also being examined for Northwest Pacific Basin tropical cyclones, in collaboration with Chun-Chieh Wu and the Taiwanese DOTSTAR project.

Work in Progress: ETKF targeting maps

2004: Northwest Pacific Basin

2004: Atlantic Basin

2003

NRL Singular Vectors

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