A Historical Perspective on Tropical Cyclone Characterization via the DMSP Sensor Suite

The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) sensors have been a key linchpin in the world-wide effort to monitor tropical cyclone (TC) location, structure and intensity. These satellite-based sensors uniquely complement land and ocean surface reports, radiosondes, aircraft reconnaissance, and geostationary Vis/IR imagery. Unfortunately, these observations are lacking in either areal extent and/or ability to penetrate through clouds to see the critical TC structures needed to make accurate nowcasts and forecasts.To monitor these extreme weather events and warn against their destructive and deadly consequences, the DMSP uses a combination of satellite-based visible and infrared (Vis/IR) optical sensors along with state-of-the-art passive microwave imagers and sounders. Specific “window channels” are selected within the passive microwave spectrum to observe desired phenomena (rain, temperature and moisture profiles, total precipitable water, cloud liquid water, etc.). These attributes have directly benefited the operational TC community by mitigating the inherent Vis/IR cloud limitations and are responsible for enhanced TC forecasts.The research and development (R&D) community has taken the geolocated and calibrated passive microwave brightness temperatures (Tb) and created a suite of objective products that add additional value to the forecaster toolbox. These automated products can provide near-real-time (NRT) guidance that not only supplements standard human imagery interpretation, but also takes another step forward in displaying accurate TC structure and intensity characteristics. Follow on civilian and military sensors by multiple nations are continuing these efforts and now technological advancements are enabling much smaller and more cost-effective solutions that likely will result in constellations that provide otherwise unavailable temporal sampling.