Storm tracking in Doppler radar images

An automated tracking algorithm for Doppler radar storms is presented. Potential storms in Doppler radar images are hypothesized as regions of high water density (high intensity in the radar images) using a merge-and-split region growing algorithm. Potential storms are verified by a relaxation labelling scheme that attempts to finds the best tracks based on spatio-temporal storm consistency. Temporal consistency is ensured by requiring temporal coherence of storm properties, which include size, average intensity, radial velocity variance (computed from the Doppler radial velocity images), storm shape and orientation and neighbourhooding storm disparity. Spatial consistency requires neighbouring storm tracks with common storms to compete with a winner-take-all strategy. The property coherence framework is adaptive, allowing additional properties to be added or deleted as appropriate. The tracking algorithm allows storm merging and splitting via a construction called pseudo-storms. Several tracks for Doppler storm radar data supplied by AES are given as examples of the algorithms performance