Scatterometer Winds on AWIPS Enhance Marine Forecasting
On October 7, 2003, the National Weather Service (NWS) began transmitting scatterometer winds on the NOAAPORT satellite broadcast service. Estimates of the oceans' near-surface (10 meters or below) winds come from the SeaWinds microwave radar instrument on NASA's QuickSCAT satellite. The NOAAPORT transmissions enabled testing of all the steps necessary to deliver scatterometer wind data to the NWS Forecast Offices. The Forecast Systems Laboratory, NWS, and NESDIS worked together to develop the required software for displaying the data on the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS). These wind observations are very valuable to marine forecasting.
Contact information
Name: Carl S Bullock
Tel: 303-497-7247
Carl.S.Bullock@noaa.gov