SMOS and aircraft measurements

Measurements of surface wind speeds during Hurricane Sandy taken from a NOAA P-3 aircraft and from SMOS. The graph shows excellent agreement between the measurements, demonstrating that SMOS has potential in hurricane forecasting. The black line shows the time series of surface wind speed estimated from the Step Frequent Microwave Radiometer sensor on the NOAA P3-aircraft as it flew into Hurricane Sandy on 28 October (courtesy NOAA/HRD). The red line shows the estimated wind speeds from SMOS along the aircraft track.