Impact of geostationary satellite water vapor channel data on weather analysis and forecasting

Preliminary results from NWP impact studies are indicating that upper-tropospheric wind information provided by tracking motions in sequences of geostationary satellite water vapor imagery can positively influence forecasts on regional scales, and possibly on global scales as well. The data are complimentary to cloud-tracked winds by providing data in cloud-free regions, as well as comparable in quality. First results from GOES-8 winds are encouraging, and further efforts and model impacts will be directed towards optimizing these data in numerical weather prediction (NWP). Assuming successful launches of GOES-J and GMS-5 satellites in 1995, high quality and resolution water vapor imagers will be available to provide nearly complete global upper-tropospheric wind coverage