The
SPoRT team provided images to the National Weather Service to help forecast
Hurricane Sandy. (NASA)
As
Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the east coast, weather experts at the
Short-term Prediction Research and Transition, or SPoRT Center at NASA's
Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville were busy developing information to
help forecasters better predict the massive storm.
The
SPoRT Center uses Earth Observing System measurements and other satellite data
to generate products useful in the analysis of weather events. SPoRT provides
these products and data sets to partners within the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NOAA's National Weather Service, and private
sector organizations like The Weather Channel.
In
2002, NASA established SPoRT, at the Marshall Space Flight Center to facilitate
the use of real-time Earth Observing System measurements for short-term weather
forecasting. Near real-time satellite imagery is useful for monitoring current
conditions and events likely to occur in the next few hours.
SPoRT
provides a variety of satellite imagery and unique products from NASA and NOAA
satellites such as Terra, Aqua, and the recently launched Suomi National
Polar-Orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP).These products can be useful for
identifying hazards such as severe thunderstorms and tropical cyclones, fog,
and snow cover, or help to monitor disasters such as floods and wildfires.
SPoRT researchers also incorporate satellite observations of the land surface
and profiles of atmospheric temperature and moisture within high resolution
weather forecasting models with a goal of improving short-term weather
predictions over the next few days.
"SPoRT
has been transitioning unique NASA and NOAA research satellite data to numerous
National Weather Service forecast offices for the last 10 years to help them
improve short-term weather forecasts of hazardous weather conditions like
hurricane Sandy," says Dr. Andrew Molthan, a research meteorologist
affiliated with the project.
"We
work closely with end users to understand their forecast problems and match our
data capabilities to those problems."For the last year, several additional
National Weather Service Centers of Excellence including the National Hurricane
Center, the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center, and the Ocean Prediction
Center, have used unique multichannel satellite
composite products from SPoRT.
The
composites are derived from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer or
MODIS and the European Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager or SEVIRI
instruments to monitor large scale weather systems that pose significant
weather threats to the United States.Through partnerships
with NOAA's Satellite Proving Grounds, SPoRT provides additional data products
from MODIS, SEVIRI, and the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite or VIIRS
instruments to monitor daily weather events, including then-Hurricane and now
post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy. Forecasters are being provided imagery from
multiple satellite sensors, including a recently developed "air mass"
satellite product, fusing data from two instruments on the Suomi NPP satellite,
to help forecasters monitor the development and decay of this storm.
"There
are many MODIS and VIIRS images of Sandy available on the web, but SPoRT
provides the National Weather Service with MODIS and VIIRS data directly within
their decision support systems, allowing use with all of their other
tools," said Molthan. "SPoRT creates a number of unique value-added
products not available anywhere else."
NASA's
Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center continues to
provide satellite imagery to the National Weather Service weather forecast
office partners and National Centers through core SPoRT activities and
collaborations with NOAA's GOES-R and Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)
Proving Grounds. Final images were created by NASA's SPoRT at Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, using MODIS and VIIRS data provided
courtesy of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
The
compositing technique resulting in the false color VIIRS day-night band and
infrared imagery was provided by the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, California
as part of an ongoing NRL-SPoRT collaboration.
For further information
visit: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASAs_SPoRT_Team_Tracks_Hurricane_Sandy_999.html
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