As Hurricane Leslie slowly moved north east of the Bahamas NOAA P-3 missions collected airborne Doppler radar data to use in initializing and evaluating model guidance. Included here you see images of the horizontal winds within the inner core of Hurricane Leslie sampled from the tail Doppler radar on the P-3 early on 7 September 2012. These images are at three altitudes, 1 km, 3 km, and 6 km, using a composite of winds from two legs oriented northwest-southeast and northeast-southwest. Also plotted on the 1-km altitude analysis are the locations of dropsondes deployed (plotted using standard station symbols). These analyses show that Leslie has a clear circulation center at all altitudes shown, but is asymmetric with the stronger winds north and east of the circulation center. The circulation center is only slightly tilted from south to north with increasing altitude from 1-km altitude to 6-km. The distribution of precipitation is also very asymmetric at all altitudes shown, with much more coverage also to the north and east. The asymmetry in the winds, precipitation, and the observed tilt with increasing altitude suggests that Leslie is embedded in southerly shear. Also apparent at the 1 and 3-km altitude wind distribution is a hint of a double wind maxima to the northeast of the circulation center, one at 50 nm and the second near 80 nm from the center.
All the Leslie radar composites at 0.5-km height resolution are available at http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Storm_pages/leslie2012/radar.html.