NASA has better cyclone forecasting model

WASHINGTON, April 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. space agency says it's developed an improved forecasting technique to better track cyclones in the Indian Ocean, Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration says a new satellite data modeling approach could provide additional and more timely warnings for mass evacuations.

About 15 percent of the world's tropical cyclones occur in the northern Indian Ocean, and because of high population densities the storms cause nearly 80 percent of cyclone-related deaths around the world. But, NASA said, incomplete atmospheric data for the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea make it difficult for forecasters to provide evacuation warnings.

In the wake of last year's Cyclone Nargis -- one of the most catastrophic cyclones on record -- NASA researchers re-examined the storm as a test case for a new data integration and mathematical modeling approach, the space agency said. They compiled satellite data from the days leading to the storm's May 2 landfall and successfully "hindcasted" Nargis' path and landfall in Burma.

"Hindcasting" means that the modelers plotted the precise course of the storm. In addition, they showed how forecasters might now be able to produce multi-day advance warnings in the Indian Ocean and improve advance forecasts in other parts of the world.

The study that included the University of Maryland-Baltimore appeared in the March 26 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.