Analysis and Improvements to the WSR-88D Storm Cell Tracking Algorithm

Studies on the efficacy of storm tracking algorithms have focused upon tracking the centroids of the radar features as identified by a separate identification algorithm. Therefore, the tracking skill becomes dependent upon the behavior of the identification algorithm. In addition, the tracking results are often compared against tracks that are determined by small quantities of subjective, human analyzes of radar images. These human analyzes, while useful, still depend upon a subjective determination of the features to track. This project seeks objectivity by simulating storm tracks. The simulated storm tracks are then passed to the tracking algorithms, independent of any identification algorithms. Therefore, an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison can be made between different algorithms. In addition, because of the ease of generating simulated tracks, the algorithms can be extensively studied in a variety of storm scenarios.