This Oct. 26, 2012 image from NASA's Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center shows Hurricane Sandy. The "blue" cloud mass of cold cloud-top temperatures off the Florida coast is associated with Sandy -- in addition, a north to south oriented line of thunderstorms associated with the strong cold front at the leading edge of the mid-latitude punch of cold air (upper level trough) which interacted with Sandy in the northeastern United States to become what a forecaster at NOAA's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center dubbed the "Frankenstorm." (NASA/Google Earth)
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- As Hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast and began its path of destruction, forecasters were able to predict the storm's movements in near real-time -- not days -- using information developed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. The work is done at Marshall's SPoRT Center, which stands for Short-term Prediction Research and Transition center.
The center uses NASA Earth Observing System measurements and other satellite data to generate analytical tools for forecasters. The National Weather Service uses SPoRT data, and so does the Weather Channel.
Some of the imagery is already available on the Internet, but SPoRT integrates what is available and provides the data directly to the clients' "support systems, allowing use with all of their other tools," Dr. Andrew Molthan, a research meteorologist with SPoRT, said in a NASA news release. "We work closely with end users to understand their forecast problems and match our data capabilities to those problems," Molthan said. Click here to see a gallery of Sandy imagery generated by SPoRT.
The satellite tools SPoRT can access can help predict events likely to occur in the next few hours. That makes them useful for identifying severe thunderstorms, fog, snow cover or cyclones and for monitoring floods and wildfires.