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. …

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 …

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 …

Meet HRD scientist Rob Rogers

Meet Rob Rogers, Lead Meteorologist of AOML’s Hurricane Research Division Observations Team.  Rob Rogers aboard a Hurricane Hunter aircraft. Image credit: Rob Rogers/AOML/NOAA Rob researches the physical processes underlying tropical cyclone structure and intensity change using airborne observations and numerical models. He is one of many scientists who fly aboard NOAA’s Hurricane Hunter aircraft to support …

Thirtieth anniversary of Hurricane Andrew’s landfall in South Florida

Hurricane Andrew made landfall on August 24, 1992, near Homestead, Florida, becoming one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in U.S. history. It had an extremely low central pressure of 922 millibars and maximum sustained wind speeds estimated at 165 miles per hour. The storm rapidly intensified less than 36 hours before landfall, leaving most residents less …

Frank Marks participates in Symposium on Tropical Cyclones, Convection and Climate – 21-22 June 2022

Kerry Emanuel has made fundamental contributions to several areas in the study of Earth's climate, notably related to tropical cyclones, convection, and climate. This two-day symposium in honor of Kerry Emanuel brought current work across these three areas together in one place, and provided a forum for exchange of ideas at current forefronts in these …

NOAA Hurricane Field Program begins with flights into Potential Tropical Cyclone 2 in the Tropical Atlantic

The NOAA flight season began early this year with an operational flight into a system, known as Potential Tropical Cyclone 2, that may soon develop into a tropical depression east of the Windward Islands. The plan for the season was recently released and is available online at https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/2022-hurricane-field-program/, and a kickoff meeting to discuss plans …

Rob Rogers presents seminar on Advancing the Understanding and Prediction of Tropical Cyclones Using NOAA Aircraft Observations

The primary goal of NOAA/OAR/AOML’s Hurricane Research Division (HRD) is to improve the understanding and prediction of tropical cyclones (TCs). While this improvement can be accomplished from a variety of approaches, a unique capability of HRD is the routine collection and analysis of airborne observations within the tropical cyclone inner core and its atmospheric and …