Global composites of surface wind speeds in tropical cyclones based on a 12 year scatterometer database

A 12 year global database of rain‐corrected satellite scatterometer surface winds for tropical cyclones (TCs) is used to produce composites of TC surface wind speed distributions relative to vertical wind shear and storm motion directions in each TC‐prone basin and various TC intensity stages. These composites corroborate ideas presented in earlier studies, where maxima are located right of motion in the Earth‐relative framework. The entire TC surface wind asymmetry is down motion left for all basins and for lower strength TCs after removing the motion vector. Relative to the shear direction, the motion‐removed composites indicate that the surface wind asymmetry is located down shear left for the outer region of all TCs, but for the inner‐core region it varies from left of shear to down shear right for different basin and TC intensity groups. Quantification of the surface wind asymmetric structure in further stratifications is a necessary next step for this scatterometer data set. Key Points Aircraft data validate surface winds from satellite scatterometers in tropical cyclones (TCs) Earth‐, motion‐, and shear‐relative analyses support past studies and highlight new TC findings Motion (shear) impacts on surface wind structure are directly (inversely) related to TC intensity