Hurricane Surface Wind Analysis H*WIND CORE AREA: Realtime analysis to identify disaster impacts H*WIND: H*Wind is a global tropical cyclone observing system designed to integrate observations from land-, sea-, space-, and air-based measurement platforms to provide: ¥ Magnitude and extent of damaging winds in realtime or retrospectively and serve as the ÒAnalysis of RecordÓ. ¥ Forcing for storm surge and wave modeling; assist wind engineering community in establishing Òdesign eventÓ. ¥ Observation-based analysis to serve as a basis for evaluating new wind measurement systems. ¥ Prototype products for input to geographic information system based decision support tools (e.g. DHS-FEMAÕs HAZUS). ¥ New metrics for evaluating destructive potential in tropical cyclones. STRATEGIES: ¥ All measurement platforms are processed to a common framework: 10 m, max 1 min wind, marine or open exposure. ¥ Oracle 9i database, JAVA, J2EE, winner of JAVA and Tech Transfer awards at NOAATech 2000, 2002. ¥ Observations plotted relative to the storm center over a 3-6 h period during which conditions are assumed stationary. ¥ All observations passing QC are objectively analyzed via least squares Þtting with a derivative constraint. ¥ Analysis winds represent Òopen terrainÓ over land and marine exposure over the sea. ¥ Valuable research tool for analysis and forecast validation. ¥ Products include snapshots, swaths, shape Þles, and gridded Þles. Results: Integrated Kinetic Energy paper, BAMS April 2007