The National Hurricane Center uses the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model to forecast where a hurricane will go, how strong it will be, how large it will be, and where the strongest winds are. This paper looks at how winds in the hurricane on the very small scale change and how these changes affect forecasts. HWRF is run a number of times changing these small-scale winds based on earlier observations of these winds from NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft. This study can help to improve HWRF and other model forecasts.
Important conclusions:
1. Small-scale wind features are important for forecasts of how quickly a hurricane will intensify and how strong it will be.
2. These features also affect the size of a hurricane and how quickly it can strengthen.
3. The findings from this paper will guide model developers to make future intensity forecasts better.
The paper can be found at http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/MWR-D-14-00341.1.