Abstract

The oceanic aviation community is hampered by a limited availability of accurate, high resolution products that depict the current and future locations of convective activity. Due to the scarcity of conventional in-situ observations, satellite remote sensing provides the only platform capable of ... Show moreThe oceanic aviation community is hampered by a limited availability of accurate, high resolution products that depict the current and future locations of convective activity. Due to the scarcity of conventional in-situ observations, satellite remote sensing provides the only platform capable of monitoring convective cloud attributes near the temporal and spatial sampling required. In this NASA-sponsored program, convective diagnosis and nowcasting products are being developed for the oceanic aviation community that use a diverse range of geostationary and polar-orbiting satellite observations and global model products. Convection diagnosis and 1-hr or 2-hr nowcasting products are produced over domains that include the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, and the CONUS with future expansion into the Atlantic planned. Near real-time products are placed on the Web at http://www.rap.ucar.edu/projects/ocn under the "Operations" sub-menu. The TRMM Precipitation Radar and Lightning Imaging System along with the CloudSat Cloud Profiling Radar provide a means to accurately validate the oceanic convection products. The NEXRAD network provides another means for product validation for the CONUS domain. The Oceanic Diagnosis and Nowcasting system will be described and results presented. Show less