1 / 16

THOR T ornado and H azardous weather ( H urricane) O bservations and R esearch

Delve into NOAA-funded THOR activities from 2006 to 2009, focusing on tornadoes, convective initiation, tropical cyclones, and more. Learn about key personnel, infrastructure upgrades, and groundbreaking research on gravity wave interactions.

jlangford
Download Presentation

THOR T ornado and H azardous weather ( H urricane) O bservations and R esearch

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. THORTornado and Hazardous weather (Hurricane) Observations and Research

  2. Background on funding • NOAA funded • FY 2006 (start 8/1/06) for two years • FY 2007 (start 8/1/07) for two years • FY 2008 is going through the systems • FY 2009 is lined up

  3. THOR Activities • Interactions between UAH and NOAA (NSSL, NWS) • Infrastructure enhancement ARMOR upgrade (Fall 2006) Parsivel disdrometers (Dec. 2006) MAX (Nov. 2007) MAX enhancements (2008) • Research (severe and hazardous weather) End to End is the goal Tornadoes Squall lines; cool season bow echoes Convective Initiation; lightning initiation Relation between lightning and severe storms Landfalling tropical cyclones QPE (wide variety) Atmospheric Technology • Mobile instrumentation collaboration (targeted obs) Longer term with NOAA/NSSL and OU

  4. THOR personnel • PI level • Knupp, Mecikalski, Petersen, Cecil, Carey • Research Associates: 3 • Graduate students • 9 directly funded • About the same number funded by other sources About 30 individuals are working in the general area of mesoscale meteorology

  5. Infrastructure improvements during last 15 months (FY 06 funds) • Parsivel disdrometers (Dec. 2006) • ARMOR upgrade (Oct. 2006) • Mobile Alabama X-band (MAX) dual pol radar (Nov. 2007)

  6. Gravity Wave/Mesocyclone Interactions • Gravity waves can cause rapid changes in local shear and helicity • Paper to be submitted to Wea. Forecasting. in Nov 2007 • Example case: 2 Feb 2006

  7. Gravity Wave/Mesocyclone Interactions • Gravity waves can produce rapid variations in the wind profile • Example case: 10 May 2006 KHTX

  8. Gravity Wave/Mesocyclone Interactions • Interactions between ducted gravity waves and mesocyclones appear to enhance the rotation within mesocyclones • Careful analysis may show that the F5 Birmingham tornado of 8 April 1998 was enhanced by interaction with an undular bore; manuscript submitted to Mon. Wea. Rev.

  9. Outreach activities • “Gravity Wave Tour”– Explaining gravity waves and their impacts on operational meteorology to NWS and TV forecasters • 5 presentations so far to NWS, Weather Channel, RFC • Plans for up to 7 more in 2008

  10. Atmospheric technology • Ground-based passive microwave remote sensing of high-impact weather • Precip estimation with dual pol radar

  11. Cold front of 16 March 2007

  12. Squall line and wake low event of 8 June 2007

  13. Use of THOR for additional leveraging:NSF Mid-Size Infrastructure proposal • Aerosols -- clouds -- precipitation • $4-4.5 M proposal • MAX-W (or MAX-Ka) • X and W-band dual pol, dual frequency radar (dual freq feed, one dish) • Ceilometer • Profiling radiometer • PR radiometer suite (89 GHz, 37 GHz, 19 GHz) • MIPS enhancements: • New 35 Channel microwave radiometer • W-band vertical pointing cloud radar • New ceilometer • Scanning Doppler lidar for low-level wind and aerosol profiles • Mobile Doppler wind lidar (1.61 m)

More Related