OPERATIONAL SATELLITE WIND PRODUCT PROCESSING AT NOAA/NESDIS: A STATUS REPORT

This paper summarizes the status of the operational satellite wind product system at NOAA/NESDIS. Recent improvements, new additions, processing changes, future plans and product quality assessment of the Atmospheric Motion Vector (AMV) product suite will be discussed. GOES-12 continues to serve as the eastern operational geostationary satellite and GOES-10 continues to serve as the western operational geostationary satellite. In the spring of 2006, GOES-11 is scheduled to replace GOES-10 as the western operational satellite. GOES-N, the first in the new GOES-N/P series of satellites, is expected to be launched in the spring of 2006. An extensive science post-launch checkout of radiances and derived products, that includes AMVs, is planned. The capability to derive polar AMVs from measurements received from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) polar orbiting Terra and Aqua satellites has been successfully transitioned into the operational NOAA/NESDIS AMV product suite. MODIS AMVs are being routinely validated against radiosonde wind observations and NCEP/GFS wind analyses; these results will be discussed. There has been an increased emphasis on improving the quality control of the operational GOES and MODIS AMVs. The Expected Error (EE) approach is being integrated within the operational winds processing stream. An expected error will be computed for each AMV and included in the BUFR template along with the other quality indicators already there