Understanding and Predicting Tropical Cyclone Rapid Intensity Changes Using Passive Microwave Observations from GPM and TRMM

Recent advances in analyzing and predicting rapid intensity change in tropical cyclones suggest that the distribution and intensity of convective activity in the storm play an important role, particularly their occurrence with respect to the dynamically significant vortex structure. We developed a framework to detect and analyze these features from satellite observations of the condensed water, using it as a proxy for the distribution of the associated latent heating and, hence, the intensity of convective activity. Here we use passive microwave measurements of the condensed water from the GPM and TRMM constellations of conically-scanning radi-ometers and employ a low-wave-number decomposition of the 2D fields of columnar condensate to depict the radial distribution of the azimuthally-averaged fields (the magnitude of wave number 0 - WNO), as well as the radial distribution of the first order asymmetry that is captured by the magnitude and azimuthal orientation of the first harmonic in the Fourier decomposition (WN1). Our analyses of a number of hurricanes illustrate the potential predictive abilities of this satellite-based analysis framework, laying the ground for future investigations.