Application:

The main purpose of NWC SAF/HRW is to provide detailed observations of horizontal wind data, with global coverage at regular interval times. These observations can be very important for weather analysis and forecast tasks, especially over oceans and remote areas, in which other sources of wind data are scarce.

HRW can be generated for every new satellite image, considering tracers defined in infrared/water vapour images (during daytime and nighttime) and in visible images (during daytime).

Advantages:

✓ Useful for watch and warning of dangerous wind situations.

✓ Monitoring of the general atmospheric flow, small scale circulation or wind singularities.

✓ Monitoring of the wind convergence/divergence (related to the development/dissolution of meteorological systems).

✓ Can also be assimilated as wind data in Numerical Weather Prediction Models, or other Analysis and Forecast applications.

Limitations:

X The variability with time of the amount of AMVs and Trajectories, through which there can be areas with no HRW data. This is related to the presence and evolution with time of cloudiness/moisture features.

X The main errors are related to inconsistencies between the NWP model used for the calculation and the true atmosphere.