Radar can see inside the eye of a storm.
The daredevil aircraft that fly into the hearts of hurricanes, including Katrina, could soon be joined by a satellite tool that can make storm planning more effective.
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can monitor wind speeds and directions inside storms at high spatial resolutions, German and US researchers say. The technique, is being tested at the US National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The new SAR images (see picture) slightly underestimated the storm's maximum wind speed over the ocean, says Jochen Horstmann, an oceanographer at the GKSS research centre in Geesthacht, Germany. The data are from the European ENVISAT and the Canadian RADARSAT-1 satellites, which monitored ocean surface roughness.
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Schiermeier, Q. US tests satellite tool for hurricane monitoring. Nature 437, 301 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/437301b
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/437301b
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