Intensity Forecasting EXperiment 2010
(IFEX10)

NOAA's Hurricane Research Division, part of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories located in Miami, FL, is in the midst of a multi-year experiment along with the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) called the Intensity Forecasting Experiment (IFEX). Developed in partnership with NOAA's Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) and its Tropical Prediction Center (TPC/NHC), IFEX is intended to improve our understanding and prediction of hurricane intensity change by collecting observations that will aid in the improvement of current operational models and the development of the next-generation operational hurricane model, the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting model (HWRF). Observations will be collected in a variety of tropical disturbances at different stages in their lifecycle, from formation and early organization to peak intensity and subsequent landfall or decay over open water.

During this year, IFEX will be operating in partnership with several other experiments:

• NOAA Ocean Winds Experiment - The goal of the Ocean Winds experiment is to further our understanding of wind direction and speed retrievals at the ocean surface level from microwave remote-sensing measurements in high wind conditions and in the presence of rain. Measurements taken from the Ocean Winds experiment in mature storms will aid in the understanding and improvement of satellite remotely-sensed wind measurements which are currently used operationally by marine forecates and in numerical weather prediction models.

• 
  NASA Genesis and Rapid Intensificiation Processes - The goal of GRIP is on better understanding the processes important in tropical cyclone genesis and rapid intensification. The aircraft used in GRIP are the NASA DC-8 and the NASA Global Hawk. The DC-8 will be used in Fort Lauderdale, FL while the Global Hawk will be based in Dryden, CA. GRIP runs from Aug. 15 - Sept. 30, 2010

• 
  NSF PRE-Depression Investigation of Cloud-systems in the Tropics - The goal of PREDICT is to increase the spatial and temporal sampling of tropical disturbances prior to, and during, genesis. The primary research tool is the NCAR G-V aircraft which with double crewing will sample disturbances for as much as 16 out of 24 hours during the early life stage. The G-V will be primarily based in St. Croix, USVI. PREDICT runs from Aug. 15 - Sept. 30, 2010

References:
Rogers, R., et al. "The Intensity Forecasting Experiment: A NOAA Multiyear Field Program for Improving Tropical Cyclone Intensity Forecasts", 2006, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, (v.87)n.11, p.1523-1537

Rogers, R., et al. "NOAA's Hurricane Intensity Forecasting Experiment: A Progress Report", 2013, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, (v.94)n.6, p.859-882