As the shape of a storm (an outline of its anvil) and its horizontal extent witness to a certain degree about the environment in which the storm takes a place, as well as the updraft strength of the storm (both of which can be related to storm severity). It is convenient to convert the images from their native satellite projection into one of the standard geographical projections (such as Polar Stereographic, Mercator, Gnomonic, or many others), configured for a particular area. Moreover, remapped satellite images can be more easily compared to other data - such as weather charts, various NWP model outputs, radar imagery and others, or even overlaid by these data. Typically, the remapped satellite images show the shape of a storm more realistically, which makes their use for nowcasting purposes more reliable. Below, is as an example of the remapped image. We see the same storm as in Fig. 1c, after being remapped into the standard Mercator projection.
For a full size view, click on the image.
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| Figure 1d. The same storm as above (Fig. 1c), the same instrument and band (HRV), but after remapping the source data from the original satellite projection into Mercator map projection. The general appearance of the storm in this projection is now very close in appearance to the storm as seen directly from above, as in the NOAA-15 image (Fig. 1a). |
