Mission Summary
Hurricane Georges

Mission Briefing:

This was a reconnaissance flight; NOAA flying for the Air Force because Hurricane Georges was too close to Cuba. HRD went along to record radar and transmit radar images and a few sondes back to the Tropical Prediction Center (TPC). Because the Air Force was closing MacDill for the storm, we planned to take off from Tampa International airport and to land at Savannah, Georgia.

Mission Synopsis:

We left Tampa International at 0123 UTC . The hurricane was still close to the Cuban coast. Because it was a night flight at 5,000', we did not extend the legs over Cuba. So we did not attempt to send any EVTD images back. Georges was quite asymmetric at this time, almost a big comma cloud. Dan Cecil, a grad student at Texas A and M, noted that the elliptical shape of Georges was similar to that of Typhoon Herb. Wen-Chau Lee (NCAR), who has studied that typhoon, pointed out that Herb was a much stronger storm than Georges. We passed through the center 5 times, and transmitted 5 lower fuselage radar composites back to TPC The aircraft flew several radials of the Key West and Miami WSR-88D's. Only two sondes were dropped, one North of Key West before we descended to 5,000' and another in the NE eyewall/ wind maximum. We landed in Savannah, Georgia at 1044 UTC.

Evaluation:

The Doppler data will be intersting to examine in relation to the WSR-88D data. However the wind maximum on the NE side was probably out of range of the WSR-88D's during this flight.

Problems:

The WARDS system did not work. The radar system froze briefly twice during the flight, at 0445 and again from 0820 to 0834 UTC.

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