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Dr. Scott Braun Principal Investigator. Hurricane Intensity Is Difficult To Predict Intensity prediction is difficult because it depends on weather at.

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Presentation on theme: "Dr. Scott Braun Principal Investigator. Hurricane Intensity Is Difficult To Predict Intensity prediction is difficult because it depends on weather at."— Presentation transcript:

1 Dr. Scott Braun Principal Investigator

2 Hurricane Intensity Is Difficult To Predict Intensity prediction is difficult because it depends on weather at very large and very small scales Hurricane intensity forecasts have not improved much over the past many years

3 The Saharan Air Layer: Friend or Foe To Tropical Cyclones? Moist tropical air Dry Saharan air TS Isaac The hot, dry, dusty SAL air mass has been argued to both favor and suppress tropical cyclone development

4 Do Deep Thunderstorms Play a Fundamental Role? 3D view from NASA’s TRMM satellite

5 HS3 Will Use Two Global Hawks The “Environmental” GH The “Over-Storm” GH Three 4-5 week deployments: 2012, 2013, & 2014

6 The Global Hawk Allows HS3 to Have Unprecedented Coverage and On-Station Time 1370 miles GH can fly this distance, dwell for 20 hours and return 3291 miles 10-hr dwell The Global Hawk can fly for up to 30 hours, allowing coverage of the entire Atlantic and on- station times of 10-20 hours.

7 HS3 Explores the Outflow of Leslie Hurricane Leslie Hurricane Michael Date: September 6-7 Target: Hurricane Leslie Goal: Transit from Dryden to Wallops, examine the outflow structure of Leslie

8 HS3 Explores Nadine’s Interaction With the SAL Tropical Storm Nadine SAL dust Date: September 11-12 Target: TS Nadine Goal: Examine whether SAL air is getting into Nadine’s circulation and perhaps slowing its development Dust Sample data from the Cloud Physics Lidar

9 HS3 Explores the Impact of Strong Wind Shear on Nadine’s Development Date: September 14-15 Target: TS/Hurricane Nadine Goal: To investigate how wind shear affects storm structure and intensification

10 Today’s Flight Into Nadine Goal: To determine how Nadine remains a tropical storm despite strong vertical wind shear, dry air, and cool ocean temperatures.

11 Achievements and Outlook For The Remainder Of The Mission Many technical and logistical challenges – Excellent support from Dryden and Wallops Successful flights into Leslie and Nadine – Dropsonde data getting into forecast models – Analysis yet to begin – Solved many problems that will improve operations in 2013-14 Looking forward to two-aircraft operations

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13 Instruments on the Environmental Global Hawk Airborne Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) PI: Dr. Gary Wick NOAA, NCAR Measurements: Temperature, Pressure, wind, humidity vertical profiles; 89 Dropsondes per flight Scanning High Resolution Infrared Sounder (S-HIS) PI: Dr. Hank Revercomb University of Wisconsin Measurements: Upwelling thermal radiation at high spectral resolution between 3.3 and 18 microns. Temperature, water vapor vertical profiles TurnTurn Water Vapor Relative Humidity Atmospheric Temperature Thousands (feet) RH (%) T (K)T (K) Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) PI: Dr. Matt McGill NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Measurements: Cloud structure and depth

14 Instruments on the Over-Storm Global Hawk Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRad) PI: Dr. Tim Miller NASA Marshall Space Flight Center Measurements: Surface wind speed, rain rate High Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP) PI: Dr. Gerry Heymsfield NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Measurements: Radar reflectivity, wind profiles High Altitude Monolithic Microwave integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) PI: Dr. Bjorn Lambrigtsen Jet Propulsion Laboratory Measurements: Temperature, water profiles, cloud liquid water


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