The Central Weather Administration (CWA) used data collected by the TRITON (Formosat-7R) satellite to forecast the arrival of Typhoon Gaemi last month, it said yesterday.
The agency issued sea and land warnings for the typhoon on July 22 and 23 respectively.
It made landfall in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳) at midnight on July 25 before leaving Taiwan proper at 4:20am via Taoyuan, CWA data showed.
Photo courtesy of the National Space Agency
When Typhoon Gaemi arrived, the TRITON satellite also provided relevant data such as sea surface wind speed, CWA Administrator Cheng Chia-ping (程家平) said, adding that such data were added to forecasts.
Sea surface wind speed is one of the key pieces of maritime data that meteorologists often lack when forecasting typhoons.
Cheng said that the satellite is one of many data sources, and it orbits around Taiwan about twice a day.
Relying solely on data collected by the satellite is not enough, he said.
“Although it might not pass by the locations that we hoped for, more data would nevertheless become available that are helpful for typhoon forecasts,” he said.
The use of data gathered by TRITON is only the first stage, Cheng said, adding that the next step would be to strengthen the agency’s forecasting capability.
“The buildup of such capability requires data assimilation and analysis to establish a data set by combining the data monitored by TRITON with the atmospheric data obtained by institutions around the world,” he said, adding that the process takes a long time, and requires constant correction and refinement.
Cheng and National Space Agency Director-General Wu Jong-shinn (吳宗信) in May signed a memorandum of understanding on the sharing of meteorological and space monitoring data, and professional technical cooperation.
The agreement means that data collected by TRITON can be used in space weather and maritime weather forecasts.
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