As a typhoon named Hagupit rages in the western Pacific, we are reminded that the tradition of naming typhoons began 70 years ago. In the midst of World War II, the United States Army Air Force established a forward weather forecasting unit on Saipan to support the 20th Air Force’s bombing campaign against the home […]
The Atlantic hurricane season will officially end November 30, and will be remembered as a relatively quiet season as was predicted. Still, the season afforded NOAA scientists with opportunities to produce new forecast products, showcase successful modeling advancements, and conduct research to benefit future forecasts. Despite the quiet Atlantic season, NOAA, and especially HRD, had an […]
At the end of the 1974 hurricane season, the United States Navy disbanded VW-4, its Hurricane Hunter squadron. While the Navy had been flying hurricane reconnaissance since 1944, the predecessor of VW-4 was Navy Weather Squadron Two (VJ-2) established in 1952 and based at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. Over the next twenty-two years, they shared […]
On November 29, 2004, Tropical Depression Winnie made landfall on Luzon in the Philippines. It actually intensified after landfall with peak winds reaching 35 mph (55 km/hr). But the main destructive force of Winnie was the heavy rainfall. The peak amount was 6.22″ (158 mm) recorded in Cabanatuan. The flash floods and landslides resulting from […]
The HFIP Workshop on Prediction of Tropical Cyclone Rapid Intensity Change (RIC) and Annual Review Meeting were held at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS), Miami, FL from 18-20 November, 2014. The agenda, presentations, and background information are available at http://www.hfip.org/events/annual_meeting_nov_2014/. The goals of the Workshop on Prediction of Tropical […]
On November 25, 1839 a violent tropical cyclone struck the busy Indian port city of Coringa in Andhra Pradesh province on the Bay of Bengal. There are no measurements of the maximum wind speed but the storm surge was estimated at 40 feet (12 meters). This destroyed the harbor city and wrecked 20,000 vessels. An […]
November’s Science meeting had 5 presentations: Robert Rogers: The use of airborne inner core data to aid in short-term intensity prediction Xuejin Zhang: Basin-scale HWRF Verification Jun Zhang: Evaluating the impact of improvements in boundary-layer parameterization on hurricane intensity and structure forecasts in HWRF Zin Lhu (EMC): Idealized 18/6/2 HWRF Physics experiments in preparation for […]
Today we send congratulations to Dr. Bob Simpson on his 102nd birthday. Bob was the first director of the National Hurricane Research Project (NHRP) which eventually became the Hurricane Research Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Atmospheric Laboratory. In addition to being a pioneer in the field of tropical cyclone research, he and his late […]
The Stepped-Frequency Microwave Radiometer (SFMR) measures surface wind speed and rainfall from aircraft. Using a large database of surface wind-speed measurements from the SFMR and dropwindsondes, the SFMR wind speeds are shown to be too high at low wind speeds and in heavy rain. The measurements are corrected using other rainfall measurements. Though the wind-speed measurements […]
On October 29, 1999, a Super Cyclonic Storm struck near the city of Bhubaneswar in the Indian state of Odisha. The day before it had become the strongest cyclone on record in the North Indian Ocean when its maximum sustained winds peaked at 140 kt (260 km/hr). It also became the deadliest Indian cyclone since […]
