Gus researches the relationship of the large-scale environment with hurricane formation and interactions between multiple storms. He also works closely with numerical hurricane models, including the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS), which is #NOAA’s next-generation hurricane prediction system. He flies on Hurricane Hunter missions to collect critical data that improve hurricane forecasts. One of Gus’ […]
The study analyzes Doppler radar profile analyses to advance our understanding of how and why tropical cyclones intensify or weaken in relation to the shape of the vortex (whether the wind field is narrow or broad) and boundary-layer structure. Example of a mean composite of only the radial wind velocity from airborne Doppler wind profile […]
October’s science meeting consisted of two presentations: The slides from these talks can be found here.
This manuscript describes the development of a set of simpler models (referred to as the National Hurricane Center guidance suite) that are currently utilized by the National Hurricane Center both for the forecasting of tropical cyclone track, intensity, and structure and for assessing the skill of other more sophisticated numerical models. A description of the […]
The chaotic, swirling winds just above the ocean as a hurricane develops play a key role in how strong a storm might be when it reaches land. Helping forecasters better account for this seemingly unpredictable wind turbulence that drives a hurricane’s intensity is what scientists with the Northern Gulf Institute and NOAA are doing. Their […]
Poor modeling of hurricane boundary layer turbulence in computer models is a key obstacle to improving hurricane intensity forecasts. This study uses a recently developed modeling framework based on a large-eddy simulation, or LES, (where model grids are small enough to resolve turbulence) to evaluate the pros and cons of four different planetary boundary layer […]
Accurately predicting when a tropical cyclone will begin a quick and sudden increase in intensity (rapid intensification or RI) is a significant challenge. In this study, we analyzed a group (or ensemble) of computer model forecasts of a real RI event to better understand it. To accurately forecast tropical cyclone intensity and when RI will […]
NOAA conducted 20 aircraft missions into Hurricane Earl in late August and early September. The series of flights over 12 days was the longest series of flights into one system that NOAA has conducted. We recently reviewed these flights, and the slides from the review can be found here. Flight tracks of all the NOAA […]
This study looked at a collection (ensemble) of 80 runs of a hurricane model for Hurricane Dorian to learn why some got the forecast right and others got it wrong. The study shows how useful ensembles can be for understanding how hurricanes move, and also shows that it is critical to forecast what is happening […]
NOAA hurricane researchers have added a new tool to their toolbox. For the first time, an Area-I Altius-600 uncrewed aircraft system was deployed into a hurricane by scientists at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory while onboard a NOAA WP-3D Orion Hurricane Hunter aircraft (N42RF, “Kermit”). This uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) is capable of operating in low- and […]
