Recap of Julia and Lisa flights

NOAA conducted two flights into Julia and five into Lisa during October of this year, all in the Caribbean Sea. The main purpose of all the missions was to gather Doppler Radar and dropwindsonde data for ingestion into NOAA's computer models to improve forecasts. Flight tracks of missions into Julia (left) and Lisa (right) during …

HRD scientists attend Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program Annual Meeting

Last week, researchers from HRD attended the 2022 Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program (HFIP) Annual Meeting in Miami, Florida.  Group photo of some of the participants of the 2022 HFIP Annual Meeting, both in person and virtually.  The primary objective of this meeting was to discuss key HFIP strategies including advances to NOAA's next-generation Hurricane Analysis and Forecast …

Recap of Hurricane Ian flights

In September, NOAA conducted 15 missions in and around Hurricane Ian before its historic landfall in Florida. Among these were 8 P-3 missions and 7 synoptic surveillance missions conducted by the G-IV. One hundred forty-three dropwindsondes were released along with 18 Airborne Expendable Bathythermographs to measure profiles in the atmosphere and the ocean underneath Ian. …

Study on how weak, disorganized tropical cyclones become upright allowing for intensification published in the Journal of Geophysical Research

This study shows how weak, disorganized tropical cyclones that have different center locations with height (misalignment) can develop a vertically aligned structure. The ability to predict whether and when a tropical cyclone will become aligned is important for intensity change forecasts, as storms can intensify quickly after achieving it. This study will help improve forecasts …

Review of aircraft missions into Hurricane Earl

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 …

Study of what controlled the track of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 released online in Monthly Weather Review

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 completes historic missions into Hurricanes Earl, Fiona, and Ian

Despite the late start to the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane season, NOAA Hurricane Hunters have been very busy flying operational and research missions into and around Hurricanes Earl, Fiona, and Ian during the last few weeks. The crew of NOAA42 before a flight. Credit: Holly Stahl NOAA/AOML HRD scientist Kathryn Sellwood analyzing dropsonde data during the …

Paper on coastal downwelling and hurricane intensification highlighted in EOS

You can read the article at https://eos.org/editor-highlights/landfalling-hurricanes-intensify-due-to-coastal-downwelling. For more information, contact aoml.communications@noaa.gov.

HRD Monthly Science Meeting of July 2022

July’s science meeting consisted of five presentations: Josh Cossuth (ONR) - "The Geolocated Processing System (GeoIPS) A platform for collaborative development & processing satellite information" Jon Zawislak - "Overview of NASA's 2022 Convective Processes Experiment Cabo Verde (CPEX-CV)" Bruno Rojas (Lapenta Intern) - "Rapid Intensification of Hurricane Dorian Using HEDAS Analyses" Andy Hazelton - "AOML …

HRD Monthly Science Meeting of June 2022

June's  science meeting consisted of seven presentations: Stanley Goldenberg: NOAA’s May Outlook for the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season: Methodology & Forecast Bachir Annane: A Catastrophe Model for Assessing Wind and Flood Hazard Risk for Florida Kathryn Sellwood: Assimilation of Coyote sUAS Observations Using Operational HWRF in Hurricane Maria William Ramstrom: Moving Nest Implementation for NOAA's …