Hurricane center advisories specifying the radius of gale force winds (GFW) in tropical cyclones are severely limited by inadequate data. Their accuracy is especially vulnerable in the data void tropical ocean regions. The SEASAT-A satellite scatterometer (SASS) sensed surface winds associated with numerous tropical cyclones. Although instrument design ruled out retrieval of winds within the inner core of the storm, surface truth studies indicate SASS can detect the threshold of gale force winds (17--18 ms-1) with an accuracy comparable to the original SEASAT specifications (¿2 ms-1 or 10% and ¿20¿). Accurate and abundant SASS observations were thus used as verification for advisories specifying the radius of gale force winds for tropical cyclones in the Pacfic and Atlantic Ocean basins. Advisories were found to consistently overestimate the radius of GFW, often by a factor of two in the Central Pacific. Large asymmetries in the GFW distribution measured by SASS were often in considerable disagreement with symmetric circular and semicircular advisory values. However, advisories that had access to low-level aircraft data closely matched SASS measured GFW values.