1. Forecasting the Weather for RU27’s Recovery Mission Justin Ash and Nilsen Strandskov
Part of the preparation process for the recovery of RU27, The Scarlet Knight, was trying to predict the weather at the time of recovery. In order to make as accurate a prediction as possible, we looked at a variety of data sources to get the full picture. These sources provided data from around the world, including Italy’s eurometeo.com where we found archived temperature and precipitation data; America’s oceanweather.com which supplied up-to-date wave height predictions; Britain’s metcheck.com which provided daily jet stream forecast; and Google Earth where we saw live satellite data on current cloud coverage. All aspects of this data were important in the prediction process. By looking at the archived data, we were able to get a good idea of what to expect of the weather during the expected recovery period. Reviewing the wave heights and jet stream patterns, a correlation was found between the intensity of the winds and the size of the waves. Finally by looking at the live satellite data on Google Earth we were able confirm what was occurring in the area off the coast of Spain.
Figure 1. Jet Stream forecast for Nov Intense winds account for high waves.
Figure 2. Jet Stream forecast for Dec 5. Low wind speed accounts for low waves.
Figure 3. Jet Stream forecast for Day of Recovery.
Figure 6. Archived data providing observed weather from 2008 and 2007 respectively for the day of recovery
Figure 5. Snapshot of the cloud coverage over Spain and the North Atlantic from Google Earth
Figure 4. Wave Height model predicting conditions in the Atlantic