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Hurricanes at Landfall
Principal Investigator
Peter Dodge
Collaborating Scientists
Goals :
One of HRD's goals is to "Enahance the ability to diagnose
and
predict the impact of tropical cyclones (TC) on life and property through wind,
rain, waves, and storm surge". The prime impact will be felt at landfall.
The TC decays as it moves inland, but this aspect of intensity change (another
HRD goal) is not well understood. An accurate description of the
tropical cyclone windfield near and after landfall, derived from airborne and
surface observations, is essential for documenting intensity change, as well
as damage to life and property. Data trnsmitted to the Tropical Pediction
Center (TPC) in real time can be used in warning, preparedness and recovery.
Objective :
- Collect and analyze data to observe intensity change at and after landfall.
- Coordinate deployment of mobile platforms to best capture intensity and intensity
change at landfall.
- Transmit Flight-level, remotely-sensed (Tail Doppler radar, SFMR and C-SCAT/IWRAP
winds) and near-surface observations (GPS sondes) to TPC for inclusion in H*Wind analyses
during landfall.
- Generate windfields synthesized from the observations and use them to diagnose
intensity change processes at landfall.
Method :
When a hurricane is forecast to make landfall in the continental
US, the collaborating sceientists are contacted to plan for coordinated
deployment of mobile observing platforms along the coast and inland.
At the same time flight patterns are designed to enable the collection
of fine-scale radar, sonde and surface data along the coast. Modules are also
planned for inalnd flights to measure inland decay, safety permitting. These
plans are continually updated and refined as the storm approaches land.
During the landfall one or two WP-3D aircraft fly patterns designed
to collect data near the mobile sites in both onsore and offshore flow
regimes. After the experiment each group is resposnsible for data collection,
calibration and verification.
John Gamache's radar wind synthesis algorithms will be applied to
Doppler radar data from all available platforms to generate landfall
windfields. Then these analyses will be combined with data from GPS sondes
and surface platforms to generate boundary layer profiles in onshore
and offshore flow regimes.
Milestones :
- Publish results from Doppler radar data analyzed for the
initial landfall of Hurricane Danny.
- Publish Hurricane Bonnie mesovortex paper.
- Complete and publish Hurricane Floyd data analysis.
Accomplishments :
Comprehensive data sets were collected in Hurricane Lili as it crossed
the Louisiana coast on 3 October, 2002, and in Hurricane Isabel on 18
September 2003, when it crossed the North Carolina coast near Morehead
City. These experiments included mobile deployments of several Doppler
radars and wind towers and NOAA research flights. The P3's collected Doppler
radar and GPS sonde data near the surface stations: In Isabel, the radar
teams obtained the first direct three-dimensional evidence of
boundary-layer features (perhaps rolls), supported by wind tower data.
The 2004 Hurricane Season was remarkable for the number of hurricanes that
struck Florida. The mobile tower and radar teams deployed in Hurricanes
Charley (FCMP), Frances (FCMP, TTU, OU, CSWR), Ivan (FCMP, TTU, OU, CSWR,
University of Southern Alabama), and Jeanne (FCMP). NOAA 43 flew tasked
landfall missions in Hurricanes Frances, Ivan and Jeanne; HRD scientists
were on board to coordinate additional sonde drops along the coast near the
deployed ground teams and to quality-control the sonde and radar data.
Analysis of thelandfall data are underway to better define the boundary
layer wind features observed in these storms.
In July 2005 HRD flew two missions in Hurricane Dennis as it made
landfall in Alabama. The second flight was notable because it was a post
landfall flight designed to observe decay after landfall. The second
flight was almost entirely over land, and some radiosondes were dropped
over uninhabited areas inland. The combination of sonde and radar data
should supply PBL winds to compare against the Kaplan-DeMaria deca
y model, On 29 August 2005 NOAA 43 flew a mission in Hurrine Katrina as it
made its destructive landfall first on the delta and then in New Orleans.
A key featyre of this flight was the ise of new UBLOX sondes that should
after post processing provide detailed wind profiles at the coast as well
as inland. These data will also be used to validate SFMT surface wind
estimates. Mobile tower teams were deployed in both storms as well.
Mission descriptions of these and earlier storms can be found in the storm
data section of the HRD web page (www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd); these documents
include maps with flight tracks and mobile platform locations, lists of
sondes deployed and sample radar images.
References :
Powell, M. D., P. Dodge, and Michael L. Black, 1991:
The landfall of Hurricane Hugo in the Carolinas: Surface wind
distribution. Wea. Forecast., 6, 379-399.
Dodge, P.P., S.H. Houston, W.-C. Lee, J.F. Gamache, and
F.D. Marks, 1999. Windfields in Hurricane Danny (1997) at landfall
from combined WSR-88D and airborne Doppler radar data.
Preprints, 23rd Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical
Meteorology, Dallas, TX, American
Meteorological Society, Boston, 61-62
Dodge, P.P., J.F. Gamache, S.H. Houston, and F.D. Marks, Jr. 1999.
Windfields in Landfalling Hurricanes from Multiple Doppler Radar Data:
the 1998 Hurricane Season. Preprints, 29th International Conference on
Radar Meteorology, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. American Meteorological
Society, Boston, 273 -275
Dodge, P.P., S.M. Spratt, F.D. Marks, D.W. Sharp, and
J.F. Gamache, 2000. Dual-Doppler analyses of mesovortices in a
hurricane rainband. Preprints, 24th Conference on Hurricanes
and Tropical Meteorology, Ft. Lauderdale, FL,
American Meteorological Society, Boston, 302-303
Dodge, P.P., S.T. Murillo, F.D. Marks, W.-C. Lee, P.
Harasti, and C. MacAdie, 2001. Comparison of winds derived from
single-radar GBVTD and dual-Doppler analyses in Hurricane
Bret (1999) at landfall. Minutes, 55th Interdepartmental
Hurricane Conference, Orlando, FL, Office
of the Federal Coordinator for Meteorological Services and
Supporting Research, Washington, D.C., BP27-BP28
Marks, F.D., P.P. Dodge, and C. Sandin, 1999. WSR-88D
observations of hurricane atmospheric boundary layer
structure at landfall. Preprints, 23rd Conference on
Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, Dallas, TX,
American Meteorological Society, Boston, 1051-1054
Mayrinck, C.E., P.P. Dodge, F.D. Marks, S.H. Houston, and
J.F. Gamache, 2002. Evolution of the coastal windfield during the
landfall of Hurricane Floyd (1999). Preprints, 25th
Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, San
Diego, CA, American Meteorological
Society, Boston, 337-338
Harasti, P. R., C. J. McAdie, P. P. Dodge, W. C. Lee, J. Tuttle, S. T. Murillo, F. D. Marks, Jr,
2003: Real-time implementation of single-Doppler analysis methods for tropical cyclones:
algorithm improvements and use with WSR-88D display data. Weather and
Forecasting
Landsea, C. W., J. L. Franklin, C. J. McAdie, J. L. Beven II, J. M. Gross, B. R. Jarvinen, R. J.
Pasch, E. N. Rappaport, J. P. Dunion, and P. P. Dodge 2004: A Re-analysis of Hurricane
Andrew's (1992) Intensity. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Soc
iety.
Dodge, P. P., J. Gamache, E. Uhlhorn, D. Estaban and P. Chang, 2004: Onshore and Offshore
wind flow regimes at the landfall of Hurricane Isabel (2003) Preprints, 26th Conference on
Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, Miami Beach, FL, American Meteorologi
cal Society,
Boston, 564-565.
Dodge, P.P., M.L. Black, J.L. Franklin, J.F. Gamache, and F.D. Marks. 2002: High-resolution
observations of the eyewall in an intense hurricane: Bret on 21-22 August 1999. Preprints,
25th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology, San Diego, CA, American
Meteorological Society, Boston, 607-608
Howard, R., P. Dodge, A. Doggett, J. Finney, K. Gurley, M. Levitan , T. Reinhold, J. Schroeder,
G. Stone, 2003: The Landfall of Hurricane Lili in Louisiana: A Summary of Cooperative Data
Collection Efforts, International Conference on Wind Engineering, Lu
bbock, Texas
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Last modified: 9/12/2005
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