HRD participates in American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting

The world’s largest yearly gathering for the weather, water, and climate community took place earlier this month in Denver, Colorado. Scientists from NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory participated in the 103rd annual American Meteorological Society meeting from January 8 - 12 through formal presentations, posters, panel discussions, and more.  AOML/CIMAS scientist Mu-Chieh (Laura) Ko …

AOML hosts team from National Data Buoy Center

AOML staff and NDBC visitors at AOML's entrance.. AOML Director John Cortinas and AOML Deputy Director Molly Baringer hosted a team of National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) experts led by Director Bill Burnett last week. They toured AOML facilities and met with scientists to exchange ideas and further develop collaborations. AOML's Physical Oceanography Division Director …

HRD scientists participate in American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting

The American Geophysical Union held their annual Fall Meeting 12-16 December in Chicago, and also online. Every year, the Fall Meeting unites >25,000 attendees from 100+ countries in the Earth and space sciences community to discuss findings, connect scientists from around the world, advance the profession and connect over passion for the impact of science. …

Paper on the impact of ocean surface waves in intensity forecasts published in The Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans

Ocean surface waves affect the exchange of momentum and energy between the ocean and the atmosphere.  However, the impact on tropical cyclone intensity and structure in fully coupled numerical models has not been well-understood. This study used a regional atmosphere-ocean-wave coupled model to study the wave impacts.  Simulations of 21 real tropical cyclones were conducted. …

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 …

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 relating the structure of the area in a tropical cyclone closest to the surface and intensity published in Monthly Weather Review

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 …

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 …

NOAA deploys new Altius drone into the eye of Hurricane Ian

Altius-600 uncrewed aircraft system being released from the NOAA WP-3D Orion Hurricane Hunter aircraft during a test flight in June 2022. Watch the video here. 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 …

Study that uses buoy and tower data to improve how models forecast the interaction between the atmosphere and ocean in tropical cyclones published in the Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans

Modeling the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean is important for accurate forecasting of tropical cyclones, especially their intensities.  Because these interactions are so complex, we typically model these interactions using what we call parameterizations to estimate what is really happening.  One parameter, the drag coefficient, is the resistance between motions in the atmosphere …