Automatic Determination of Center of Tropical Cyclone in Satellite-Generated IR Images

In this letter, a new method is discussed for the automatic determination of the center of tropical cyclones (TCs) by extracting the spiral features within it using the infrared (IR) images from geostationary satellites. Meteosat-5 IR images of two TCs viz., Mala (April 24-29, 2006), and Sub Tropical Storm 4 (STS-4) (October 15-18, 1999) have been analyzed using the image processing techniques, and the center of the TC is then estimated by fitting the spiral at different locations. The present method provides accurate estimates of the cyclone center for the images where the spiral patterns are well featured. However, the method leads to larger errors during formative or decaying phase of cyclone due to the absence of robust pattern in the images. The present method has a potential to be applied in a completely automated mode and can be used to replace the manual center determination which is being done traditionally.