At some point during this Atlantic hurricane season, if a storm develops in or enters the Gulf of Mexico, crewmembers aboard a WC-130J Weatherbird aircraft will drop an array of torpedo-shaped sensors into the waters below, monitoring the instruments as they record data on temperature, salinity, and pressure while descending to depths more than a mile deep.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Such readings will be critical. Transmitted in real time to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, they will help forecasters project the storm\u2019s likely path, which will allow emergency managers to issue advisories and warnings to protect assets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For University of Miami ocean scientist Lynn \u201cNick\u201d Shay<\/a>, the measurements will prove just as indispensable. He will employ the data to help answer challenging questions about the process and timing of rapid intensification, when a hurricane\u2019s maximum sustained winds increase by at least 35 miles per hour in 24 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n Factors such as warm water, high atmospheric moisture, and low wind shear are known to play significant roles in that process. But determining precisely how the inner core of a storm changes so abruptly, and forecasting when and where a storm will explode, still present daunting challenges for researchers, even after decades of investigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Learning more about warm water eddies that break off from the Loop Current in the Gulf could help forecasters overcome those challenges.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey can supercharge storms,\u201d Shay, a professor in the Department of Ocean Sciences at the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science<\/a>, said of eddies, noting that they can act like high-octane fuel that energizes storms that pass over them.\u00a0<\/p>\n Should a storm churn in the Gulf this season, the ElectroMagnetic Autonomous Profiling Explorer, or EM-APEX, floats that Shay and his team will deploy from Hurricane Hunter aircraft out of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, will help unlock the key air-sea interaction processes involved in rapid intensification.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe beauty of these floats is that they enable us to sample quickly in the upper layers of the ocean and then, as time evolves, go deeper and deeper. And when they surface, they send all the data back through satellite remote sensing,\u201d Shay said. \u201cWe\u2019re always cognizant about storms in the Gulf. Ideally, what we\u2019ll need is a well-defined storm track before we deploy any instruments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n If they happen, Shay\u2019s sensor deployments will be among many research endeavors University of Miami investigators will undertake this season as part of ongoing efforts to learn more about hurricanes\u2014from their structure and strength to how the winds and waves they generate affect coastal structures.\u00a0<\/p>\n The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)\u2019s Hurricane Hunter aircraft, on which a team of University researchers regularly deploys, will again soar into the heart of storms, collecting data that will not only improve forecasts but also lead to a better understanding of storm dynamics.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, the Hurricane Hunters\u2014two Lockheed P-3 Orion turboprop craft nicknamed Kermit and Miss Piggy and a Gulfstream IV jet, all based out of Lakeland, Florida\u2014flew 55 missions into hurricanes and tropical storms, logging some 387 hours of flight time and covering more than 130,000 miles, the equivalent of flying around the world more than five times.\u00a0<\/p>\n This year, despite NOAA forecasters predicting a below-average<\/a> Atlantic hurricane season, scientists who deploy on the high-flying meteorological stations as part of NOAA\u2019s Hurricane Field Program still hope to continue testing promising new storm-forecasting instruments ranging from high-tech drones to wave drifters, according to Jason Dunion<\/a>, a meteorologist at the Rosenstiel School-based Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies (CIMAS)<\/a> and with NOAA\u2019s Hurricane Research Division.\u00a0<\/p>\n Launched from the belly of Kermit and Miss Piggy, Black Swift S0 drones will measure pressure, temperature, humidity, and wind speeds inside a hurricane while flying as low as 200 meters above the surface of the ocean\u2014an altitude unsafe for the P-3s.\u00a0<\/p>\n A total of 18 of the 20-pound drones, which can survive inside a storm for up to two hours, were deployed last season. Researchers hope to deploy several more this year, according to Dunion.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cToward the end of their flights, the drones measure the critically important hurricane boundary layer where energy from the ocean is being transferred up into the hurricane,\u201d said Dunion, who will serve as lead project scientist on P-3 flights this season and assist in coordinating ground-support efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n This season, hurricane data collected by the drones will be seamlessly incorporated into NOAA\u2019s flagship hurricane forecast model, the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System, or HAFS, in near real time.\u00a0<\/p>\n Researchers will continue to test a storm observation instrument called a StreamSonde. Released from the bottom of the P-3 aircraft, StreamSondes weigh just a few grams and descend at speeds of only 5 meters per second without a parachute, extending the data collection window for researchers to gather atmospheric measurements from flight level to the ocean surface. \u201cWe\u2019ll release them in swarms this season to provide detailed measurements of key areas in the hurricane environment,\u201d Dunion said.<\/p>\n Drifters that measure wave height and sea surface temperature before, during, and after a hurricane; an Airborne Doppler Lidar that uses laser technology to continuously measure winds, aerosols, and precipitation below the aircraft; and a scanning radar system that operates at microwave frequencies onboard the P-3s and provides 3D profiles of precipitation and winds as well as measurements of wave heights are among the other high-tech instruments researchers will employ this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n CIMAS associate scientist Andy Hazelton<\/a> will be part of the leadership team at the Hurricane Field Program that will test the new technology. \u201cThe goal,\u201d he said, \u201cis always to improve data collection and, ultimately, forecasts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He will also help in the continued testing, evaluating, and upgrading of HAFS, NOAA\u2019s newest numerical model and data assimilation system that provides more reliable and skillful guidance on tropical cyclone track, intensity, and structure, and can extend forecasting out to seven days.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing we\u2019re continuing to work on this year is a multi-storm version of HAFS in which we put multiple high-resolution nests inside a single domain to better capture the storm-storm interactions,\u201d Hazelton said. Acting like a digital magnifying glass, nests are high-resolution, storm-following grids embedded within the HAFS\u2019 broader, lower-resolution domain, allowing forecasters to zoom in on a hurricane\u2019s inner core without having to apply high resolution globally.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a continuation of an effort we\u2019ve been working on for a few years now, and we hope to eventually transition this version to operations,\u201d Hazelton explained. \u201cFor this year, we\u2019ll be working on doing near real-time runs with the support of the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Program. We\u2019ll be doing one basin-scale domain over the Atlantic and one over the East and Central Pacific, since we anticipate a busy Pacific season with El Ni\u00f1o developing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Not all of the investigators involved in hurricane research this season will fly aboard Hurricane Hunters. Some, like College of Engineering<\/a> researcher Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos<\/a>, will conduct high-tech simulations indoors to learn what they need to know about storms.\u00a0<\/p>\n