Cloud Depiction and Forecast System II overview: 1998 IEEE aerospace conference

The Cloud Depiction and Forecast System II (CDFS II) program is a current computer processing upgrade for Air Force Global Weather Center. This system is designed to use all available foreign and domestic meteorological satellites, as well as ground based measurements, to analyze current cloud conditions and predict future cloud conditions worldwide. The system is capable of ingesting and processing data from up to nine simultaneous satellites, from the two different types of polar orbiting satellites and the 3 different types of geostationary meteorological satellites. Each hour the individual analyses are fused into a single integrated analysis and cloud forecasts are made for the next 48 hours in time. CDFS II is the only known system that produces hourly worldwide cloud analysis and forecasts. This paper provides an overview of the CDFS II system, which will go operational in December 2000.