Floater Question

[wxmann_91]

Sometimes, I just can't understand why the Floaters are placed where they are in respect to a storm.

For example, earlier today, the Floaters were switched so that the eye was at the corner of the image.

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/mtsat/flt/t2/im ... 833avn.jpg

They were switched even before the typhoon was even halfway across the image of the previous floater.

So, my question is - Who controls where it is?

[WindRunner]

Ditto this one, wxmann. I'm about ready to shoot whoever controls that Ioke floater . . . haven't gotten a whole image of the storm out of it in at least 3 days, probably more.

[NFLDART]

Yes who makes that decision

[senorpepr]

Normally, the floaters have to be set periodically based on the latest fix position. However, it's not a big priority. Meteorologists don't need those floaters since they have their own imagery to use.

When you're dealing with a storm like Ioke, there isn't a BIG demand to manually adjust the floater.

I mean, c'mon... this isn't in Honolulu's area of responsibility, so why should they have to move the floater?

My suggestion: use the NRL floaters or suck it up and use the real images and not that cropped junk.

[WindRunner]

Oh come on, senor, you know you appreciate 1km resolution images just as much as the rest of us do sometimes . . . because it can get kind of hard to pick out small CU fields when looking at a full-disk GOES 12 image

[wxmann_91]

Yeah, NRL's good, but Floaters come and go, and thus they are worth more in the long run. NRL images are archived and can be picked up at around any time.

They are other sats out there but I require archives to about a day (since I do have to sleep and work and go to school), before they are deleted. Floaters are archived for about 3-4 days.

If this was in the Atlantic, I'd use GHCC, but since GHCC does not cover the WPAC, only Floaters are possible.

And now the floater's too far east. Next switch will probably have the eye in the corner again.

[TWTC]

The NRL and FNMOC TC page floaters are directly tied into the Hurricane Center (NHC), Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) and Central Pacific Hurricane Center (CPHC) forecast systems; conesequently, thats why those particular floaters stay updated as they get synoptic position fixes regularilly in an automated fashion. Likely, the SSD / NESDIS floaters have to be manually adjusted and they just may not have the coverage to keep that up-to-date. As mentioned in an earlier post, the Hurrcance Forecasters have no need for floaters since they have their own on-site imagery from GOES, METEOSAT, MTSAT, etc.