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NSCAT Data
Typhoon Violet at Japan
This image shows typhoon Violet, along with surrounding winds measured by the NSCAT scatterometer,
near Japan on September 20, 1996. The cloud imagery is from the Infrared channel of the GMS-5
Japanese meteorological satellite. Overlayed on top of the cloud data are the surface vector
winds as measured by NSCAT. In the NSCAT data, the measured wind direction is shown by arrows,
and the measured speed by color: blue representing low wind speeds and red the highest wind
speeds. An apparent drop in wind speed near the center of the storm is most likely due to
access rain attenuation of the scatterometer radar signal. This image is typical of the
operational data that was generated using NSCAT and made available to meteorologists.
NSCAT provided regular measurements of ocean surface wind velocity from space, which enhanced the ability
to forecast the behavior of storms such as Violet.
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