Paper on how the region near the ocean surface impacts hurricane forecasts released online in Monthly Weather Review

Posted on December 19, 2016 by

Summary:

Forecasters and researchers use 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 close to the surface in hurricanes are transferred upward and how changes in the strength of this transfer affect forecasts of rapidly intensifying hurricanes. HWRF is run a number of times changing the wind close to the surface and how energy and moisture move from the ocean surface into the hurricane. These changes are based on earlier observations of these winds from NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft. The HWRF forecasts of rapid intensification of two well-sampled hurricanes, Earl (2010) and Karl (2010) were significantly improved with these changes. The improvements are consistent with recent studies emphasizing the importance of the region near the surface in driving hurricane rapid intensification.

Important Conclusions:

1. Wind features close to the surface and the way that energy and moisture move from the ocean surface into the hurricane are important for forecasts of how strong a hurricane will become.

2. These features near the ocean surface also affect how quickly a hurricane can strengthen.

3. The findings from this paper will guide model developers to make future intensity change forecasts better.

 

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You can read the paper at http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/MWR-D-16-0129.1.

Posted in Dynamics and Physics, HFIP-Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, Modeling and Prediction, Publications | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

HRD employees recognized at AOML Awards ceremony

Posted on December 16, 2016 by

At a recent awards ceremony, HRD Director Frank Marks and AOML Deputy Director Molly Beringer presented recognitions to several employees whose service went above-and-beyond during the past year.IMG_4009.JPG

Bachir Annane was recognized for comprehensive and timely analyses using the OSSE framework to evaluate the impact of the CYGNSS scatterometer data set on tropical cyclone forecasts.
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Jun Zhang, Kelly Ryan, and Lisa Bucci (not in photo) for successfully operating and executing the Doppler Wind Lidar instrument on NOAA’s P3 Hurricane Hunter aircraft during the 2015 and 2016 IFEX hurricane field programs.

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Shirley Murillo for excellence in leading the Hurricane Research Division’s Observing System Simulation Experiment science research group.

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Stanley Goldenberg was recognized for 35 years of federal service.  Never one to shy from comment, Stan is one of the most public faces of hurricane research at AOML, communicating hurricane science and the message of preparedness to thousands each year. Stan’s focus on hurricane climatology produced a widely referenced 2001 Science publication describing a multidecadal pattern in Atlantic hurricane activity, and he is a member of NOAA’s seasonal hurricane outlook team.  In recent years, Stan has found his niche in supporting the HWRF modeling group in the Hurricane Research Division. Stan helps evaluate model output to help ensure the model gets it right for the right reasons, applying his experience as a veteran hurricane scientist. Thank you for your service Stan!

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Joe Griffin  was recognized for 40 years of federal service.  Joe is a computer specialist with the Hurricane Research Division. He wrote all the code underpinning the software to process our aircraft data sets from the radar data sets to the dropsondes, including developing the original airborne work station allowing the real-time processing of radar data and transmission of radar analyses to NHC. Since 2003 he has been HRD’s chief information officer supporting all of the division’s computing needs, ensuring access to all of the aircraft data sets to hurricane researchers across the world. As HRD’s computing needs evolved with the addition of modeling and OSSEs, he has expanded his efforts to maintaining the servers that support these groups, procuring and administering a small high-performance computing system, Ooyama 1&2. Thank you for your service Joe!

In addition, Sonia Otero was recognized for software engineering leadership during the development of the Airborne Atmospheric Measurement and Profiling System (AAMPS), the principal aircraft data system used on the NOAA WP-3D and Gulfstream-IV Hurricane Hunter aircraft from 2007-2016.

Jason Dunion was awarded the AOML Best Paper Award for his paper on the tropical cyclone diurnal cycle:  Dunion, J.P., C.D. Thorncraft, and C.S. Velden, 2015: The tropical cyclone diurnal cycle of mature hurricanes. Monthly Weather Review, 142(10):3900-3919 (doi:10.1175/MWR-D-00191-1).

 

Congratulations to all the award winners!

 

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Paper on a new way to run forecast models with multiple hurricanes at the same time published in Weather and Forecasting

Posted on December 15, 2016 by
  • Summary:

HWRF is NOAA’s primary model for tropical cyclone (tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes) forecast. The distance between places where forecasts are made in the model (the grid resolution) must be small to make accurate forecasts. However, the amount of computer power needed increases as these points get closer together. To save computer power, HWRF runs with a higher resolution only around the tropical cyclone than outside using so-called nesting. The current HWRF can only forecast one tropical cyclone at a time. This paper presents a way to forecast up to four tropical cyclones at a time using movable multi-level nesting (MMLN). The nests

can follow each tropical cyclone. This paper documents the design of the MMLN for the first time. The model is run for four seasons.

  • Important Conclusions:

The version of HWRF wth MMLN improved forecasts of where the storm was going.

The version of HWRF with MMLN can better forecast places outside the tropical cyclone (the environment) that controls where the storm will go and how strong it will be than the regular version.

The version of HWRF with MMLN may be used during upcoming hurricane seasons to improve forecasts.Screen Shot 2016-12-15 at 4.42.42 PM.png

You can find the paper online at http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/WAF-D-16-0087.1.

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Paper on a technique to find the center of a tropical cyclone using synthetic aperture radar when clouds are covering the center published in IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing

Posted on December 13, 2016 by

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You can find the full article at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7707311/.

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HRD Monthly Science Meeting of December 2016

Posted on December 8, 2016 by

December’s science meeting consisted of 6 presentations:

  1. Paul Reasor (HRD):  “Real-time, storm-scale diagnostics derived from Tail Doppler Radar”,
  2. Jun Zhang (HRD):  “Recent improvement in physical parameterization of horizontal turbulent mixing in HWRF “,
  3. Rob Rogers (HRD):  “Re-writing the Tropical Record Books:  The Extraordinary Intensification of Hurricane Patricia (2015)”,
  4. Hui Christophersen (HRD):  ‘Composite Analysis of Global Hawk Dropsonde Impact for Edouard (2014)’
  5. Eric Blake (NHC):  “Hurricane Forecasting Challenges During 2016”
  6. John Cangialosi (NHC):  “2016 Track/Intensity/Genesis Forecast Verification”

All the presentations are available on the anonymous ftp site at:

ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/hrd/blog/meetings/2017/Science/HRD_SciMeet_20161208.zip

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HRD Seminar – Dr. Sim Aberson, AOML/HRD – 5 December 2016

Posted on December 7, 2016 by

Dr. Aberson presented a seminar titled  “Dropsondes in Hurricanes (1949 to the present)”

Abstract:

The history of the use of dropsondes in hurricanes will be presented with special emphasis on the achievements since the development and implementation of the NCAR GPS dropwindsonde 20 years ago.  The GPS dropwindsonde revolutionized the science of hurricanes.  Though originally developed as part of a program to improve numerical forecasts, it spurred development of targeting and data assimilation techniques to optimize data gathering.  Most importantly, the instrument provided the first detailed look at the kinematics and dynamics of tropical cyclones, especially in the eyewalls near the most intense systems.

A recording of the presentation is available on the anonymous ftp site:

ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/hrd/blog/seminars/2017/Aberson_HRD_Seminar_20161205.mp4

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Posted in Data Assimilation, Dynamics and Physics, HFIP-Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, Modeling and Prediction, Observations, Presentations | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

2016 Hurricane Season ends

Posted on November 30, 2016 by
Brad Klotz celebrates the end of missions into Hurricane Matthew

Brad Klotz celebrates the end of missions into Hurricane Matthew

Today marks the last day of the 2016 Atlantic hurricane season, and it was a busy one for us.  AOML’s Hurricane Research Division (HRD) participated in 57 missions into six different tropical cyclones: Colin, Earl, Javier (East Pacific), Hermine, Karl, and Matthew.  From early June to the start of October, HRD personnel either flew on-board research flights or processed data on the ground in real time from these missions.  Here is a break down of the sorties by aircraft platform:

  • P-3                  32 missions
  • G-IV                17 missions
  • Global Hawk   8 missions

NOAA launched over 1000 dropsondes in and around storms this season, a massive deployment executed through the Intensity Forecasting EXperiment (IFEX), conducted in collaboration with NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center and National Hurricane Center, and the Sensing Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT) campaign in cooperation with NASA and NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory.

Some highlights from this season’s efforts:

  • Testing and development of new observing technologies including Doppler Wind Lidar data gathered in Earl and Javier.
  • Prolonged genesis and intensification of Hermine was observed.  Hermine was the first land-falling hurricane in Florida since Wilma (2005).
  • A  unique data set was collected during the extratropical transition of Karl.  This was the first storm flown from cyclogenesis to extratropical transition.
  • Hurricane Matthew was the first category-5 hurricane in Atlantic basin since Felix (2007).

The various data sets gathered this year will be studied extensively to look for possible relationships between rainfall patterns and storm intensity changes.  The dropsondes and Doppler radar data collected in conjunction will help improve the new generation of computer simulations that model the inner workings of the hurricane vortex.  This will help improve the forecasting of intensity change, a central goal of HRD.

 

Posted in HFIP-Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, Observations | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Through the Eyewall – My Experience with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters, Nicholas Komisarjevsky, Science Communications Intern, NOAA AOML

Posted on November 20, 2016 by

screen-shot-2016-11-20-at-5-56-17-pmhttp://www.aoml.noaa.gov/keynotes/keynotes_1116_hurrhunterflight.html

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HRD Seminar – Kelly Ryan, CIMAS and AOML/HRD, Tucson, AZ – 28 October 2016

Posted on November 20, 2016 by

Kelly Ryan presented a seminar titled  “OSSE Evaluation of the Impact of Aircraft Observations on Hurricane Analyses and Forecasts” at the University of Arizona.

A copy of the presentation is available on the anonymous ftp site: ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/hrd/blog/seminars/2017/Ryan_UA_seminar_Oct2016.pdf

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HRD observation team monthly meeting – 17 November 2016

Posted on November 20, 2016 by

The purpose of the observation team meetings is to bring together the people who use observations in their research on a regular basis to discuss issues they’re having, provide updates on observations they’re analyzing or collecting, and any other information that may be of interest to the broader group.  These meetings are also an excellent opportunity to integrate all of the many uses of observations in HRD’s capacity to improve the understanding and prediction of tropical cyclones.

Agenda for November 2016:

Updates & Outlook
1) SFMR reprocessing (Brad Klotz)
2) Coyote outlook (Joe Cione)
3) DWL update (Lisa Bucci/Jun Zhang)

Research & Development
4) Dropsonde analysis tool development (Jon Zawislak)
5) Dropsonde impact study (Hui Christophersen)

The presentation from the meeting is available on the anonymous ftp site: ftp://ftp.aoml.noaa.gov/pub/hrd/blog/meetings/2017/Observations/HRD_ObsMeet_20161117.zip

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