Impact of Msmr Surface Wind Speed on the Analysis and Forecast of a Limited Area Model

India launched its first oceanic remote sensing satellite IRS-P4 (Oceansat-1) on May 26, 1999. The satellite carries a Multi frequency Scanning Microwave Radiometer (MSMR) which provides marine atmospheric data over the Global Ocean. The surface wind speed is available at the resolutions of 75 km and 150 km. In this paper, impact of MSMR surface wind speed on the analysis and forecast of the operational NWP model of India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been examined. The wind direction computed based on early run of model analysis is used to derive u and v components from the MSMR surface wind speed. The analysis scheme is rerun using these modified u-v data. Modified analysis field obtained thus is used for the 24 hours model run. The experiments are carried-out with the data of May 2001 during the period of progress of Indian summer monsoon over the Indian subcontinent and development of a cyclonic storm in the east Arabian Sea The model surface wind analysis has shown substantial improvement with this data, particularly during the development of tropical cyclone over the data sparse region of the tropics as revealed from this study.