Real-Time Transmission of
Aircraft Radar Data During Hurricane Katrina
Lower fuselage radar packet data from the NOAA P-3 aircraft was transmitted
off the aircraft and displayed sweep by sweep in real-time on the ground for
the first time ever. This groundbreaking event is the first step toward the
next-generation of real-time transmission of environmental remote sensing
data from the NOAA aircraft. This represents a vast improvement over the
current antiquated Aircraft-to-Satellite-Data-Link (ASDL) system (300 baud)
currently used to transmit limited data off the aircraft for operational
use by National Weather Service (NWS). This effort is a collaboration
between the NESDIS Ocean Winds program, NOAA Aircraft Operations Center
and Remote Sensing Solutions, Inc. In addition to being an invaluable
mission planning tool for ocean wind calibration/validation experiment
flights, the transmission of even more complex and information rich data
from the NOAA P-3 aircraft and, ultimately, the NOAA Gulfstream IV aircraft
will prove very important to operational forecasters and the next generation
of NWS numerical weather models. The left image below is a lower fuselage
radar (C-band) scan of Hurricane Katrina from the NOAA P-3 N43RF (Miss Piggy)
on Sunday, August 28 th prior to landfall in Louisiana before Katrina was in
range of the land based NEXRAD systems. The red and yellow colors indicate
higher reflectivity values.
 
The real-time lower fuselage radar data was brought into the National
Hurricane Center for the first time via a satellite phone data link.
The right image illustrates what was viewable at NHC on a sweep-by-sweep
basis from the NOAA P-3 aircraft during a pass through the eye of
Hurricane Rita, creating essentially a virtual seat aboard the P-3 on
the ground. Getting this data to NHC in real-time was made possible
through a collaborative efforts of Remote Sensing Solutions, Inc.,
NWS/NCO, NHC, AOC, and ORA personnel. While this year's effort was
just a demonstration, this sets the stage for significant advancements
in the quantity and quality of data that can be made available to
assist NHC forecasters/analysts in their decision making process.
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