Hurricane Researchers Eye Low-Level Flights to Gauge Strength

from Wall Street Journal Online

MIAMI—As hurricane season enters its second week, scientists are gearing up to unleash a new tool that stands to improve their ability to predict intensity, the component of a storm that most confounds forecasters.

Hurricane researchers for years have deployed an array of aircraft to help predict a storm’s strength and path, from “Hurricane Hunter” turboprops that fly into its core to unmanned Global Hawks that cruise high above it. But one of the most critical areas of a hurricane—its lowest section, where the sea and winds churn violently—has largely been off-limits because of the perils of sending manned aircraft there.

Now, scientists think they have a cost-effective solution: a drone called the Coyote designed to venture into that turbulent zone for as long as two hours and beam back a stream of data that can paint a more precise picture of a storm.

“The way we’re measuring things now is a snapshot,” said Joseph Cione, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who is spearheading the drone project. “The Coyote will give me a movie.”

The NOAA plans to release as many as five of the drones this hurricane season, which began June 1 and lasts until Nov. 30. It is part of a $1.3 million project funded by a supplemental appropriations bill enacted last year in response to superstorm Sandy, which hammered the mid-Atlantic region in 2012 as it moved up the East Coast.

Researchers say that while they have made little progress in predicting intensity over the past 30 years, they have made significant strides in predicting a storm’s track and have steadily narrowed the so-called cone of uncertainty, which covers the range of projected paths.

“Track forecasts get two to three percent better each year,” said Hugh Willoughby, a professor and hurricane specialist at Florida International University. “The big problem that’s been very resistant is predicting intensity.”

A primary reason for the difficulty in intensity forecasting is that researchers haven’t been able to closely study the area of a storm where the sea meets the air. That is where some of the key dynamics that affect intensity, such as the evaporation of warm water that fuels a hurricane, take place.

The consequences of poor intensity forecasting came into focus in 2004 with Hurricane Charley, which killed 10 people in the U.S. and caused $15 billion of damage. It strengthened from a Category 2 storm, with winds up to 110 miles per hour, to a Category 4 storm, with winds up to 156 mph, just hours before making landfall in southwestern Florida, surprising many forecasters.

This year, the NOAA is predicting a near-normal or below-normal Atlantic hurricane season, resulting from the likely development of an El Niño weather pattern in the Pacific Ocean, which tends to produce winds that weaken storms. The agency expects eight to 13 named storms, with three to six of them becoming hurricanes.

Continue Reading at Online.WSJ.com…

Or, check out the WSJ’s video of University of Miami-NOAA scientist Jason Dunion discussing the Coyote: