DEVELOPMENT OF MESOSCALE CONVECTIVE SYSTEM (MCS) IDENTIFICATION METHOD USING RADAR DATA BY IMAGE PROCESSING

• Main Author: Aviva Rachmah, Aisyah
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/65700
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Radar data is one of the data commonly used to identify mesoscale convective system (MCS). BMKG is an agency that provides radar data in Indonesia. The radar data that is provided is in the form of image and can be accessed by the public on the BMKG website. The product of BMKG radar image data is column maximum (CMAX) where the height of each maximum reflectivity in a column is unknown. To identify MCS, reflectivity information is needed. Therefore, digital image processing is carried out to convert radar image data to reflectivity data. This research was also conducted to prove whether CMAX data can be used to identify MCS. The digital image processing is mostly done using the Python programming language and its libraries. This process consists of converting RGB into reflectivity, georeferencing, and converting radar image data into reflectivity data in a loop. MCS identification using reflectivity data from digital image processing is done manually by counting the grid length of the MCS. Out of three case studies that have been conducted, two case studies have identified a linear type of MCS using CMAX data. Both cases were also verified using satellite data and MCS was identified at the same time as the MCS in the second case occurred. One case study failed to identify MCS using reflectivity data, but when identified using infrared (IR) satellite data, MCS was detected. The cause to it was probably caused by the threshold value that being used was too high. The MCS type that is identified by using radar data tends to be linear in shape and the one that is identified using satellite data tends to be circular.