TITAN

Thunderstorm Identification, Tracking, Analysis and Nowcasting

The TITAN application (Dixon and Wiener 1993) provides an objective methodology for automatic identification and tracking of storm cells in radar data and enables the efficient processing of large volumes of radar data. The application has been in use in Australia for a number of years and has proved valuable for the analysis of thunderstorm characteristics and also for real-time nowcast applications.

The Bureau of Meteorology operates a network of conventional, predominately C band, weather radars around the country and these radars provide 10-min low-level surveillance scan data and volumetric radar data. These data support forecast and warning operations for public weather, severe weather and aviation weather services and for hydrometeorological operations.

In recent years there have been moves to upgrade the radar network, to utilise the radar data in a more quantitative way and to develop and implement a nowcast system that provides improved guidance to weather forecasters and enables the generation of derived products for end users. These developments have resulted largely from the increasing economic impacts of thunderstorms, a recognised need to provide better thunderstorm warning products and a need to streamline the preparation of these products. A Nowcast Applications Server has been developed that integrates several radar data processing applications, including TITAN.

Application of TITAN for thunderstorm nowcast operations (2005) (pdf file - 121KB)