On September 18, 2003 Hurricane Isabel made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Although Isabel had been a Category Five hurricane at its peak, it struck the United States as a Category Two storm. Still, it caused over $5 billion in damage to the MidAtlantic states and killed 16 people directly.
While Isabel was at its maximum intensity northeast of the Lesser Antilles, NOAA began a series of missions into the storm. Hurricane Research Division scientists participated in eight missions following the storm until its landfall. Part of the Coupled Boundary Layer Air–Sea Transfer (CBLAST) project, the flights included low-level passes between rainbands, gathering information on the energy flux between the ocean and atmosphere and increasing our understanding of hurricane energetics.
Some HRD papers that came out of research into Isabel are:
Montgomery, M. T., M. M. Bell, S. D. Aberson, M. L. Black, 2006: Hurricane Isabel (2003): New insights into the physics of intense storms. Part I: Mean vortex structure and maximum intensity estimates. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 87, 1335–1347.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-87-10-1335
Aberson, S. D., M. Black, M. T. Montgomery, M. Bell, 2006: Hurricane Isabel (2003): New insights into the physics of intense storms. Part II: Extreme localized wind. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 87, 1349–1354.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-87-10-1349
W. M. Drennan, J. A. Zhang, J. R. French, C. McCormick, P. G. Black, 2007 :Turbulent fluxes in the hurricane boundary layer. Part II: Latent heat flux, J. Atmos. Sci., 64, 1103-1115.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JAS3889.1
M. M. Bell, M. T. Montgomery, 2008: Observed structure, evolution, and potential intensity of category 5 Hurricane Isabel (2003) from 12 to 14 September. Mon. Wea. Rev., 136, 2023-2046.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2007MWR1858.1
S. Lorsolo, J. L. Schroeder, P. Dodge, F. Marks Jr., 2008: An observational study of hurricane boundary layer small-scale coherent structures, Mon. Wea. Rev., 136, 2871-2893.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/2008MWR2273.1
Zhang, J. A., P. G. Black, J. R. French, and W. M. Drennan, 2008: First direct measurements of enthalpy flux in the hurricane boundary layer: The CBLAST results. Geophysical Research Letters, 35(11):L14813, doi:10.1029/2008GL034374.
Nolan, S. D., J. A. Zhang and D. P. Stern, 2009: Validation and comparisons of planetary boundary layer parameterizations in Tropical Cyclones by Comparison of in-situ observations and high-resolution simulations of hurricane Isabel (2003). Part I: Initialization, track and intensity, and the outer core boundary layer. Mon. Wea. Rev., 137, 3651–3674.
Nolan, S. D., D. P. Stern, and J. A. Zhang, 2009: Validation and comparisons of planetary boundary layer parameterizations in Tropical Cyclones by Comparison of in-situ observations and high-resolution simulations of hurricane Isabel (2003). Part II: Inner core boundary layer and eyewall structure. Mon. Wea. Rev., 137, 3675–3698.
Zhang, J. A., W. M. Drennan, P. G. Black, and J. R. French, 2009: Turbulence structure of the hurricane boundary layer between the outer rain bands.J. Atmos. Sci., 66, 2455-2467.
Zhang, J. A., 2010: Estimation of dissipative heating using low-level in-situ aircraft observations in the hurricane boundary layer. J. Atmos. Sci., 67, 1853-1862.
Zhang, J. A., 2010: Spectra characteristics of turbulence in the hurricane boundary layer. Quart. J. Roy. Meteor. Soc., DOI:10.1002/qj.610.
Zhang, J. A., and W. M. Drennan, 2012: An observational study of vertical eddy diffusivity in the hurricane boundary layer. J. Atmos. Sci., 69, 3223-3226.
M. M. Bell, M. T. Montgomery, K. A. Emanuel, 2012: Air–sea enthalpy and momentum exchange at major hurricane wind speeds observed during CBLAST. J. Atmos. Sci., 69, 3197-3222.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/JAS-D-11-0276.1