This report reviews the work reported earlier in AFGL-TR-76-0170, Cloud Distributions as Indicators of Tropical Storm Displacement, by the same author, on the application of composite cloud imagery to the forecasting of tropical storm motion. Several additional techniques that were tested briefly for application to typhoon specification and forecasting are discussed and evaluated. Animations of 12-hour infrared images did not suggest anything useful within the limited time available for analysis. The technique, however, should be comprehensively tested with data of better time and spatial resolution. Infrared composites appeared to be less useful than visual composites. The increased detectability of thin cirrus clouds in the infrared masked the significant cloud features. An attempt to duplicate Dvorak's relationships between peak wind speed and the central and banding features of typhoons by compositing storms of similar intensity failed. The fine details Dvorak could distinguish in individual storms were destroyed by the compositing process. Objective analysis of satellite imagery of typhoons is seriously handicapped by the limited archive of digital data. (Author).

This report reviews the work reported earlier in AFGL-TR-76-0170, Cloud Distributions as Indicators of Tropical Storm Displacement, by the same author, on the application of composite cloud imagery to the forecasting of tropical storm motion. Several additional techniques that were tested briefly for application to typhoon specification and forecasting are discussed and evaluated. Animations of 12-hour infrared images did not suggest anything useful within the limited time available for analysis. The technique, however, should be comprehensively tested with data of better time and spatial resolution. Infrared composites appeared to be less useful than visual composites. The increased detectability of thin cirrus clouds in the infrared masked the significant cloud features. An attempt to duplicate Dvorak's relationships between peak wind speed and the central and banding features of typhoons by compositing storms of similar intensity failed. The fine details Dvorak could distinguish in individual storms were destroyed by the compositing process. Objective analysis of satellite imagery of typhoons is seriously handicapped by the limited archive of digital data. (Author).

This report reviews the work reported earlier in AFGL-TR-76-0170, Cloud Distributions as Indicators of Tropical Storm Displacement, by the same author, on the application of composite cloud imagery to the forecasting of tropical storm motion. Several additional techniques that were tested briefly for application to typhoon specification and forecasting are discussed and evaluated. Animations of 12-hour infrared images did not suggest anything useful within the limited time available for analysis. The technique, however, should be comprehensively tested with data of better time and spatial resolution. Infrared composites appeared to be less useful than visual composites. The increased detectability of thin cirrus clouds in the infrared masked the significant cloud features. An attempt to duplicate Dvorak's relationships between peak wind speed and the central and banding features of typhoons by compositing storms of similar intensity failed. The fine details Dvorak could distinguish in individual storms were destroyed by the compositing process. Objective analysis of satellite imagery of typhoons is seriously handicapped by the limited archive of digital data. (Author)

This is a preliminary report on use of satellite cloud imagery to forecast tropical cyclone movements. The spatial distribution of cloudiness implicitly indicates information about recent or ongoing processes in the atmosphere. Assuming that as with cloud distribution represents a set of initial conditions, it is reasonable to expect that forecast information can be extracted from these initial conditions. The problem with using satellite imagery as a self-contained forecast tool has been the difficulty in handling the data processing. The Man-computer Interactive Data Access System (McIDAS) is a flexible data management system the advantages of both human decision-making computer. With McIDAS it is relatively simple to assemble composites of images of storms with similar displacement characteristics. These composites reinforce the cloud or cloudless features common to the individual cases and mute randomly distributed clouds. Investigation of typhoon cloudiness in the Pacific indicate that there are different characteristic cloud distributions preceding storms that recurve and those that stay on westerly tracks. In particular there is a confluence of outflow cloudiness from the storm with the clouds of a mid-latitude frontal system in the case of low-latitude westward moving storms in the Philippine and South China Seas. Characteristic cloud patterns associated with other types of storm systems are also suggested by the analysis.