Real-Time Dissemination of Airborne Doppler
Radar Data from the NOAA P-3 Aircraft:
A Progress Report
PI: John Gamache (HRD)
Collaborators: Peter Dodge, Joe Griffin, Nancy Griffin, Paul
Leighton (HRD), and Alison Krautkramer (TPC/JHT)
Points of Contact: James Franklin and Colin McAdie at NHC
EMC collaborator: Qingfu Liu
Thanks to NOAA/AOC
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/project2003/doppler.html
Project Goals
• Develop a airborne-Doppler hurricane windfield analysis in “real time” and make portions
of it available to hurricane specialists at the
Tropical Prediction Center
• Send reliable observations to the
Environmental Modeling Center at NCEP for
data-assimilation testing in numerical
hurricane simulations
Main Goals of this Presentation
• List and describe briefly the tasks
required for this project
• Present the kinds of wind fields we have
developed in “real time” on the P3
• Compare analysis briefly with GPS
sondes for one case
• Future work
Vertically scanning X-band Doppler radar
aboard the NOAA P-3 Aircraft
NOAA Antenna
Jorgensen et al., JAM, 1983
HRD Software Prior to JHT
• Three-dimensional variational
analysis of winds from airborne
Doppler radar data
• Higher resolution radius height
cross-section of wind along the
inbound and outbound legs
Project Requirements
 Automated Quality Control of Raw Doppler
Data (completed)
 Software to generate batch job files (completed)
 Software to generate output files that can be
transmitted off the aircraft by SATCOM to
EMC (completed)
• Software to generate tagged files to send
analyses to TPC via SATCOM (in progress)
• Network communication path to TPC and
EMC (in progress)
Doppler Radial Velocity
Hurricane Humberto
232855 UTC 23 Sep 2001
Raw (except for standard Bargen-Brown unfolding)
HRD QC
“Real-Time” 2004 airborne-Doppler
Accomplishments in Hurricane Ivan
• Three-dimensional wind fields and vertical
profiles produced in real time in Hurricane
Ivan (2004)--1 per flight during N43RF flights
on Sep 12, 13, and 15
• Files of trimmed quality-controlled radial
velocities produced that could be sent to EMC
by SATCOM
Wind speed in m/s at 1-km altitude
Hurricane Ivan 12 September 1115-1145 UTC
(digital camera picture of N43RF airborne workstation)
Radial wind (m/s) along outbound (SE) flight leg
Wind speed in m/s along outbound (SE) flight leg
After flight cartesian airborne-Doppler analysis
of winds from same flight leg at 1-km altitude
in Hurricane Ivan 1115-1145 UTC on 12 September 2004
Available real time in 2005
Comparison of Doppler Vertical Cross Section
with GPS Eyewall Sonde
GPS sonde
Doppler analysis
Wind speed m/s
Horizontal plots of total wind speed at 2 km altitude
Hurricane Isabel 1710 UTC 12 Sep 2004
Automatic QC (minutes) Manual QC (weeks)
Radius-height cross-sections of radial wind
Hurricane Isabel 1710 UTC Sep 12 2004
m/s
50
100
150
Radius from center (km)
Automatic QC
(minutes)
50
100
150
Radius from center (km)
Manual QC
(weeks)
NWS GEMPAK display of automatic Doppler analysis at 1600 ft altitude.
Wind barbs at left and total earth-relative wind speed in knots on right
Display developed at TPC by Alison Krautkramer
Hurricane Ivan on 12 Sep 2004 at 1453 UTC
Grand
Cayman
Possible further application:
Modification of flight plan to find max wind.
Summary
•We can produce real-time airborne Doppler
wind analyses reliably
•They are available in either a three-dimensional
form, or as two-dimensional radial profiles of
winds. Radial profiles have higher radial and
vertical resolution than the three-dimensional
fields since solution of mass continuity is not
required
Future Work
• Compute comparison statistics with
dropsondes
• Modify package to work on the G4-upgrade
Doppler radar and linux system
• Apply automatic QC and analysis to large
archive of airborne Doppler data (this spring-2004)
• Modify quality control software to allow
manual QC after automatic QC (for research)
Thank you
GEMPAK wind barbs at 3200 ft altitude
Developed at TPC by Alison Krautkramer
Hurricane Ivan on 12 Sep 2004 at 1453 UTC