Dave_Osterberg's Blog

I wanted to talk for a second about a problem which the Hurricane Center first talked about last year but did touch on again this year; the Quickscat satellite. Last year the director of the Hurricane Center at the time Bill Proenza openly criticized his bosses and also the imminent failure of the satellite. He said if and when it fails hurricane forecasting accuracy would decrease dramatically. Well fast forward to this season, and with a new chief, they are playing damage control. Here's where I need to put everyones fears to rest.

First off the Quickscat satellite  is an earth-observing satellite that provides wind speed and direction information over oceans to NOAA. It was launched June 19, 1999, with a 3 year life span, but it continue to chug on. It's primary purpose was not to focus on tropical cyclone, but it has proven instrumental in helping with developing tropical systems. When tropical waves form out over the open oceans planes aren't sent to investigate unless they are threatening land. So thats where the twice a day pass of the Quickscat comes in. It actually does a great job at estimating these developing storms, and determining where the low level circulation is. As these storms reach Tropical Storm status, the satellite continues to provide important data for the forecasters. Here's what people don't know about this satellite. IT DOES NOT DO WELL FOR HURRICANES. It suffers from all kinds of convective feedback in determining the surafce winds and circulation. Not to say it is not helpful, but it helps far more with weaker storms than it does hurricanes. That is something that most people didn't know. When a storms even comes near land, aircraft will be flying around the clock inside the storm to achieve data. This to me is far more valuable data since it is constant, and with an ever changing storm you don't have to rely on a 2 pass a day satellite. I am not saying the Quickscat is not useful because it is, but if it was to fail the Hurricane Center shouldn't skip a beat. There is a similar satellite that the Europeans use, but it is not as good, and they have postponed another sattelite launch until  somewhere around 2016. So no worries, as long as we have everything else, I think the stellar forecasts from the Hurricane Center will continue.