Title
Detecting Comma-shaped Clouds for Severe Weather Forecasting using Shape and Motion.
Abstract
Meteorologists use shapes and movements of clouds in satellite images as indicators of several major types of severe storms. Yet, because satellite image data are in increasingly higher resolution, both spatially and temporally, meteorologists cannot fully leverage the data in their forecasts. Automatic satellite image analysis methods that can find storm-related cloud patterns are thus in demand. We propose a machine learning and pattern recognition-based approach to detect “comma-shaped” clouds in satellite images, which are specific cloud distribution patterns strongly associated with cyclone formulation. In order to detect regions with the targeted movement patterns, we use manually annotated cloud examples represented by both shape and motion-sensitive features to train the computer to analyze satellite images. Sliding windows in different scales ensure the capture of dense clouds, and we implement effective selection rules to shrink the region of interest among these sliding windows. Finally, we evaluate the method on a hold-out annotated comma-shaped cloud data set and cross match the results with recorded storm events in the severe weather database. The validated utility and accuracy of our method suggest a high potential for assisting meteorologists in weather forecasting.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1109/TGRS.2018.2887206
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing
Keywords
Field
DocType
Clouds,Satellites,Storms,Weather forecasting,Shape,Spaceborne radar
Satellite,Cyclone,Remote sensing,Storm,Severe weather,Region of interest,Weather forecasting,Satellite image,Mathematics,Cloud computing
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
abs/1802.08937
6
0196-2892
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.40
13
Authors
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Xinye Zheng110.40
J. Ye29510.80
Yukun Chen342.54
Stephen Wistar4132.45
Jia Li512743658.57
Jose A. Piedra-Fernández6163.58
Michael A. Steinberg761.62
James Z. Wang87526403.00