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January 8, 2013 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130108131149.htm | 2012 was warmest and second most extreme year on record for the contiguous U.S. | According to NOAA scientists, 2012 marked the warmest year on record for the contiguous United States with the year consisting of a record warm spring, second warmest summer, fourth warmest winter and a warmer-than-average autumn. The average temperature for 2012 was 55.3°F, 3.2°F above the 20th century average, and 1.0°F above 1998, the previous warmest year. | The average precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. for 2012 was 26.57 inches, 2.57 inches below average, making it the 15th driest year on record for the nation. At its peak in July, the drought of 2012 engulfed 61 percent of the nation with the Mountain West, Great Plains, and Midwest experiencing the most intense drought conditions. The dry conditions proved ideal for wildfires in the West, charring 9.2 million acres-the third highest on record.The U.S. Climate Extremes Index indicated that 2012 was the second most extreme year on record for the nation. The index, which evaluates extremes in temperature and precipitation, as well as landfalling tropical cyclones, was nearly twice the average value and second only to 1998. To date, 2012 has seen 11 disasters that have reached the $1 billion threshold in losses, to include Sandy, Isaac, and tornado outbreaks experienced in the Great Plains, Texas and Southeast/Ohio Valley.This analysis from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides government, business and community leaders so they can make informed decisions.Every state in the contiguous U.S. had an above-average annual temperature for 2012. Nineteen states had a record warm year and an additional 26 states had one of their 10 warmest.On the national scale, 2012 started off much warmer than average with the fourth warmest winter (December 2011-February 2012) on record. Winter warmth limited snow with many locations experiencing near-record low snowfall totals. The winter snow cover for the contiguous U.S. was the third smallest on record and snowpack totals across the Central and Southern Rockies were less than half of normal.Spring started off exceptionally warm with the warmest March on record, followed by the fourth warmest April and second warmest May. The season's temperature was 5.2°F above average, making it easily the warmest spring on record, surpassing the previous record by 2.0°F. The warm spring resulted in an early start to the 2012 growing season in many places, which increased the loss of water from the soil earlier than what is typical. In combination with the lack of winter snow and residual dryness from 2011, the record warm spring laid the foundation for the widespread drought conditions in large areas of the U.S. during 2012.The above-average temperatures of spring continued into summer. The national-scale heat peaked in July with an average temperature of 76.9°F, 3.6°F above average, making it the hottest month ever observed for the contiguous United States. The eighth warmest June, record hottest July, and a warmer-than-average August resulted in a summer average temperature of 73.8°F, the second hottest summer on record by only hundredths of a degree. An estimated 99.1 million people experienced 10 or more days of summer temperatures greater than 100°F, nearly one-third of the nation's population.Autumn and December temperatures were warmer than average, but not of the same magnitude as the three previous seasons. Autumn warmth in the western U.S. offset cooler temperatures in the eastern half of the country. Although the last four months of 2012 did not bring the same unusual warmth as the first 8 months of the year, the September through December temperatures were warm enough for 2012 to remain the record warmest year by a wide margin.The nationally-averaged precipitation total of 26.57 inches was 2.57 inches below average and the 15th driest year on record for the lower 48. This was also the driest year for the nation since 1988 when 25.25 inches of precipitation was observed.The driest conditions during 2012 occurred across the central United States. Two states, Nebraska and Wyoming, had their driest years on record. Eight additional states had annual precipitation totals ranking among the bottom ten. Drier-than-average conditions stretched from the Intermountain West, through the Great Plains and Midwest, and into the Southeast. Wetter-than-average conditions occurred in the Pacific Northwest, where Washington had its fifth wettest year on record, as well as parts of the Gulf Coast and Northeast.Each season of 2012 had precipitation totals below the 20th century average:Alaska was cooler and slightly wetter than average during 2012. The year began very cold for the state with a January temperature 14.0°F below the 1971-2000 average. Each subsequent season was also cooler than average, resulting in an annual temperature 2.3°F below average. Much of 2012 was also wetter than average, and the annual precipitation total was 9.2 percent above average.Drought conditions continued to plague Hawaii during 2012. At the beginning of 2012, 47.4 percent of the state was experiencing moderate-to-exceptional drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. By the end of the year, the percent area experiencing moderate-to-exceptional drought expanded to 63.3 percent of the state.Tropical cyclone activity across the North Atlantic in 2012 as above-average with 19 named storms, ten hurricanes, and one major hurricane (Category 3 or stronger). This is the third consecutive North Atlantic tropical cyclone season with 19 named storms and ties with as the third most active season for the basin. Isaac and Sandy made landfall along the U.S. coast during 2012 causing significant impacts. Isaac brought large storm surge and torrential rains to the Gulf Coast. Sandy caused significant damage to the Northeast, with 8 million homes losing power and 131 fatalities reported.The widespread drought conditions of 2012 peaked in July with approximately 61 percent of the country experiencing drought conditions. The footprint of drought during 2012 roughly equaled the drought of the 1950s which peaked at approximately 60 percent. The size of the current drought and the drought of the 1950s are smaller than the drought episodes of the 1930s. The current drought has yet to reach the intensity or duration of the 1950s and 1930s national-scale droughts.Wildfire activity during 2012 was above-average with 9.2 million acres burned -the third most in the 13-year record. Numerous large and destructive wildfires impacted the western U.S. throughout the year. The Waldo Canyon fire near Colorado Springs, Colorado destroyed nearly 350 homes and was the most destructive fire on record for the state. The Whitewater-Baldy Complex fire charred nearly 300,000 acres and was the largest on record for New Mexico.Tornado activity during 2012 was below the 1991-2010 average of approximately 1,200. The year got off to a busy start with large tornado outbreaks in March and April causing significant damage in the Ohio Valley and Central Plains. May and June, typically the most active tornado months of the year, both had less than half of average tornado counts. The final 2012 tornado count will likely be less than 1,000-the least since 2002.More information is available at: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,013 |
December 19, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121219160334.htm | Will the world end on December 21, 2012? What we know and don't know about forecasting natural disasters | Based on interpretations of the ancient Maya calendar, some people are predicting the world will end on December 21, 2012, Others believe that instead of doomsday and destruction, the day will mark a new era for humanity and will be a time for celebration. | Such beliefs aside, what we know with certainty is that Earth has a tremendous capacity to generate natural disasters on any day of any year. For this reason, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists continue to look for ways to better forecast a wide range of natural hazards and protect our communities.Let's take a closer look at the state of the science -- what we know and what we don't know -- about our ability to forecast natural disasters.Despite claims to the contrary, no reliable short-term earthquake prediction method has ever been developed. Nor do scientists expect to develop a method in the foreseeable future.However, based on scientific data, probabilities can be calculated for future earthquakes. For example, comprehensive assessments of long-term earthquake rates in California tell us there is roughly a 2-in-3 chance that a magnitude 6.7 or larger earthquake will strike in the next 30 years in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Within the state of California as a whole, earthquakes this large are virtually certain (a 99% probability) in that same time frame.USGS scientists are also working with university colleagues to gather objective and quantitative information on which to base shorter-term earthquake forecasts. This work includes developing better methods to quantify changes in probability based on recent earthquake activity. For example, scientists are looking at the probability for a larger earthquake after an initial earthquake. They are also developing approaches to communicate these probabilities that will be most effective at supporting appropriate decision making.Learn more about USGS earthquake forecasting and hazards research (The United States is home to 169 active volcanoes, many of which could erupt at any time. Fortunately, volcanoes generally show signs of unrest hours, weeks and months before they erupt. Changes in gas emissions, swelling of a volcano, and swarms of small earthquakes are signs that a volcano is awakening. All of these changes can be detected with proper monitoring equipment.The USGS National Volcano Early Warning System (Learn more and see current alerts and status for volcanoes in the United States by visiting the USGS Volcano Hazards website (Landslides occur in all 50 states and pose a significant risk in many areas. Scientists know landslides are likely on the west coast during its rainy season from November to March, during spring and summer thunderstorms in the western mountain states, and during hurricane season along the east coast. People at especially high risk for landslide damage are those living on or below steep hill slopes.Wildfires can lead to flash flooding and debris flow, as vegetation is removed that would have served as a stabilizing factor and the remaining burned soil is less able to absorb rainwater. Landslides can also occur from earthquakes, volcanic activity, changes in groundwater, or disturbance and change of a slope by human-made construction activities.USGS scientists produce maps of areas susceptible to landslides and identify what sort of rainfall conditions will lead to such events. The USGS is working with the National Weather Service on a prototype Debris Flow Warning System (For more information, visit the USGS Landslide Hazards Program website (Wildfires are a great concern when there is a lack of precipitation, particularly during the summer months when the weather becomes hot and dry. When there is no water, wildfires can spread very quickly and can be hard to control. Climate change and the resulting hotter and arid conditions are expected to significantly increase wildfire frequency and severity.The USGS plays an integral role in preparing for and responding to wildfires (Hurricane season runs from June 1 through November, with September as the peak time when they are most likely to strike. But hurricanes and tropical storms can hit at other times as well.NOAA is responsible for monitoring and issuing warnings for hurricanes and tropical storms. The USGS works with NOAA and provides information on associated coastal vulnerability and change (Flooding from storms is another concern, as is drought from lack of rainfall. The USGS conducts real-time monitoring of the nation's rivers and streams, and you can visit USGS WaterWatch (What is a magnetic storm? The sun is always emitting a wind of electrically charged particles that flows outward into space. If these concentrations of solar wind are directed towards Earth, then the magnetic field of Earth in space (the magnetosphere) can be disturbed, sometimes for days.Large magnetic storms can cause loss of radio communication, affect global-positioning systems, damage satellite electronics and cause electrical blackouts. Damaging storms occur about 4 times a decade, with smaller events occurring more frequently. Magnetic storms can be detected up to 2 days in advance by monitoring the sun. They come in all sizes, but the largest storms tend to occur when sunspots (concentrations of magnetic energy on the surface of the sun) are most numerous.The monitoring of "space weather" conditions is a responsibility of several U.S. government agencies, including NOAA, NASA, and the U.S. Air Force. The USGS has the unique responsibility of monitoring geomagnetic activity at Earth's surface, close to where most of the effects of magnetic storms are actually realized. Learn more and view near-real time conditions (The question to consider on December 21, 2012, and every day is: Have I done everything I can to ensure that my family and I are prepared, should a disaster strike? This includes preparing and practicing your emergency plan and building a disaster supplies kit ( | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
December 18, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121218133152.htm | Internet outages in the US doubled during Hurricane Sandy | USC scientists who track Internet outages throughout the world noted a spike in outages due to Hurricane Sandy, with almost twice as much of the Internet down in the U.S. as usual. | Previous research by this team has shown that on any given day, about 0.3 percent of the Internet is down for one reason or another. Just before Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, that number was around 0.2 percent in the U.S. (pretty good, by global standards) -- but once the storm made landfall, it jumped to 0.43 percent and took about four days to return to normal, according to a new report by scientists at the Information Sciences Institute (ISI) at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering."On a national scale, the amount of outage is small, showing how robust the Internet is. However, this significant increase in outages shows the large impact Sandy had on our national infrastructure," said John Heidemann, who led the team that tracked an analyzed the data. Heidemann is a research professor of computer science and project leader in the Computer Networks Division of ISI.Heidemann worked with graduate student Lin Quan and research staff member Yuri Pradkin, both also from ISI, sending tiny packets of data known as "pings" to networks and waiting for "echoes," or responses. Though some networks -- those with a firewall -- will not respond to pings, this method has been shown to provide a statistically reasonable picture of when parts of the Internet are active or down.The team was also able to pinpoint where the outages were occurring, and noted a spike in outages in New Jersey and New York after Sandy made landfall.Their research was published as a technical report on the ISI webpage on December 17, and the raw data will be made available to other scientists who would like to analyze it.The data is not yet specific enough to say exactly how many individuals were affected by the outage, but does provide solid information about the scale and location of outages, which could inform Internet service providers on how best to allocate resources to respond to natural disasters."Our work measures the virtual world to peer into the physical," said Heidemann. "We are working to improve the coverage of our techniques to provide a nearly real-time view of outages across the entire Internet. We hope that our approach can help first responders quickly understand the scope of evolving natural disasters." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
December 5, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121205142325.htm | Northeast U.S. sees second driest November in more than a century | Even though Hurricane Sandy helped create wet start to the month for several states, November 2012 went into the record books as the second-driest November since 1895 in the Northeast. With an average of 1.04 inches or precipitation, the region received only 27 percent of its normal level. | The record driest November was 1917 when the Northeast received only 0.88 inches of precipitation.All states were drier than average. Departures ranged from 16 percent of normal in Connecticut, their second-driest November, to 37 percent of normal in New Jersey, their 11th driest. Of the remaining states, New Hampshire, Vermont and West Virginia had their second-driest November; Delaware, Maine, Maryland and New York had their third driest. Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Massachusetts also ranked in the top 10 driest Novembers.Overall for autumn, the Northeast was slightly drier than average with 11.36 inches of precipitation (98 percent of normal). The region was split down the middle with half of the states drier and half the states wetter than normal. Connecticut took the title of driest state with only 78 percent of normal, while Delaware led the wet states with 120 percent of normal.The latest U.S. Drought Monitor, issued Nov. 27, indicated abnormal dryness continued in upstate New York while a new area of abnormal dryness popped up near the Vermont-New Hampshire border and in central-southern West Virginia.In addition to being dry, the Northeast was cooler than normal for November -- in spite of a brief mind-month warmup. With an average temperature of 37.2 degrees, it was 2.5 degrees cooler than normal and was the coolest November since 1997. All states reported below average temperatures for the first time since October 2009. West Virginia and Maine were the coolest at 4.1 degrees below average. Departures for the rest of the states ranged from 4 degrees below normal in New Jersey to 0.9 degrees below normal in Vermont.Autumn's overall average temperature of 50 degrees was average for November in the Northeast. West Virginia was the coolest at 1.6 degrees below average for the season. Of the warm states, Vermont was the warmest at 1.1 degrees above average. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 30, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121130151651.htm | More intense North Atlantic tropical storms likely in the future | Tropical storms that make their way into the North Atlantic, and possibly strike the East Coast of the United States, likely will become more intense during the rest of this century. | That's the prediction of one University of Iowa researcher and his colleague as published in an early online release in the The study is a compilation of results from some of the best available computer models of climate, according to lead author Gabriele Villarini, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and assistant research engineer at IIHR-Hydroscience & Engineering, and his colleague Gabriel Vecchi of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Princeton, N.J."We wanted to conduct the study because intense tropical cyclones can harm people and property," Villarini says. "The adverse and long-lasting influence of such storms recently was demonstrated by the damage Hurricane Sandy created along the East Coast."The study itself examines projected changes in the North Atlantic Power Dissipation Index (PDI) using output from 17 state-of-the-art global climate models and three different potential scenarios. The PDI is an index that integrates storm intensity, duration, and frequency."We found that the PDI is projected to increase in the 21st century in response to both greenhouse gas increases and reductions in particulate pollution over the Atlantic over the current century. By relating these results to other findings in a paper we published May 13, 2012 in the journal"Moreover, our results indicate that as more carbon dioxide is emitted, the stronger the storms get, while scenarios with the most aggressive carbon dioxide mitigation show the smallest increase in intensity," he says. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 20, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121120121839.htm | Thousands of natural gas leaks discovered in Boston | The City of Boston is riddled with more than 3,000 leaks from its aging natural-gas pipeline system, according to a new study by researchers at Boston (BU) and Duke Universities. | Their findings appear this week in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal The new study comes in the wake of devastating fires fueled by natural gas during Hurricane Sandy. Potential damage to gas pipeline pressure regulators, caused by flooding in Hurricane Sandy, has raised ongoing safety concerns in New York and New Jersey.The researchers report finding 3,356 separate natural gas leaks under the streets of Boston. "While our study was not intended to assess explosion risks, we came across six locations in Boston where gas concentrations exceeded the threshold above which explosions can occur," said Nathan Phillips, associate professor in BU's Department of Earth and Environment and co-author of the study.Nationally, natural gas pipeline failures cause an average of 17 fatalities, 68 injuries, and $133M in property damage annually, according to the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. In addition to the explosion hazard, natural gas also poses a major environmental threat: Methane, the primary ingredient of natural gas, is a powerful greenhouse gas that degrades air quality. Leaks in the United States contribute to $3 billion of lost and unaccounted for natural gas each year."Repairing these leaks will improve air quality, increase consumer health and safety, and save money," said co-author Robert B. Jackson, Nicholas Professor of Global Environmental Change at Duke. "We just have to put the right financial incentives into place."Phillips and Jackson's teams collaborated with industry partners Robert Ackley of Gas Safety, Inc., and Eric Crosson of Picarro, Inc., on the study. They mapped the gas leaks under Boston using a new, high-precision methane analyzer installed in a GPS-equipped car. Driving all 785 road miles within city limits, the researchers discovered 3,356 leaks.The leaks were distributed evenly across neighborhoods and were associated with old cast-iron underground pipes, rather than neighborhood socioeconomic indicators. Levels of methane in the surface air on Boston's streets exceeded fifteen times the normal atmospheric background value.Like Boston, other cities with aging pipeline infrastructure may be prone to leaks. The researchers recommend coordinated gas-leaks mapping campaigns in cities where the infrastructure is deemed to be at risk. The researchers will continue to quantify the health, safety, environmental, and economic impacts of the leaks, which will be made available to policymakers and utilities as they work to replace and repair leaking natural gas pipeline infrastructure.Lucy Hutyra, Assistant Professor and Max Brondfield, technician, worked with Phillips on this study at Boston University. At Duke, PhD student Adrian Down, postdoctoral researcher Kaiguang Zhao, and research scientist Jon Karr assisted Jackson with his research.The study was supported by the Barr Foundation, Conservation Law Foundation, National Science Foundation, Picarro, Inc., Boston University and Duke University. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 15, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121115133754.htm | America's ancient hurricane belt and the U.S.-Canada equator | The recent storms that have battered settlements on the east coast of America may have been much more frequent in the region 450 million years ago, according to scientists. | New research pinpointing the positions of the Equator and the landmasses of the USA, Canada and Greenland, during the Ordovician Period 450 million years ago, indicates that the equator ran down the western side of North America with a hurricane belt to the east.The hurricane belt would have affected an area covering modern day New York State, New Jersey and most of the eastern seaboard of the USA.An international research team led by Durham University used the distribution of fossils and sediments to map the line of the Ordovician Equator down to southern California.The study, published in the journalCo-lead author Professor David Harper, Department of Earth Sciences, said: "The equator, equatorial zones and hurricane belts were in quite different places in the Ordovician. It is likely that the weather forecast would have featured frequent hurricane-force storms in New York and other eastern states, and warmer, more tropical weather from Seattle to California."Since Polar Regions existed 450 million years ago, the scientists believe that there would have been similar climate belts to those of today.The research team from Durham University and universities in Canada, Denmark and the USA, discovered a belt of undisturbed fossils and sediments -deposits of shellfish- more than 6000 km long stretching from the south-western United States to North Greenland. The belt also lacks typical storm-related sedimentary features where the deposits are disturbed by bad weather. The researchers say that this shows that the Late Ordovician equatorial zone, like the equatorial zone today, had few hurricane-grade storms.In contrast, sedimentary deposits recorded on either side of the belt provide evidence of disturbance by severe storms. Hurricanes tend to form in the areas immediately outside of equatorial zones where temperatures of at least 26The position of the equatorial belt, defined by undisturbed fossil accumulations and sediments, is coincident with the Late Ordovician equator interpreted from magnetic records (taken from rocks of a similar age from the region). This provides both a precise equatorial location and confirms that Earth's magnetic field operated much in the same way as it does today.The scientists pieced together the giant jigsaw map using the evidence of the disturbed and undisturbed sedimentary belts together with burrows and shells. Using the findings from these multiple sites, they were able to see that North America sat on either side of the Equator.Co-author Christian Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen, said: "The layers of the earth build up over time and are commonly exposed by plate tectonics. We are able to use these ancient rocks and their fossils as evidence of the past to create an accurate map of the Ordovician globe."Professor Harper added: "The findings show that we had the same climate belts of today and we can see where North America was located 450 million years ago, essentially on the Equator.""While the Equator has remained in approximately the same place over time, the landmasses have shifted dramatically over time through tectonic movements. The undisturbed fossil belt helps to locate the exact position of the ancient Laurentian landmass, now known as North America."The study is funded by the Danish Council for Independent Research. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 9, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121109111242.htm | Tracking post-Sandy sewage | With millions of gallons of raw sewage dumping into New Jersey waterways following Hurricane Sandy, University of Delaware scientists are using satellites to help predict the sludge's track into the ocean. | "Technically, you can't identify raw sewage from a satellite, but you can find river discharge that you suspect has raw sewage," said Matthew Oliver, assistant professor of oceanography in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. "The reason why is because river discharge usually has a very different temperature and color than the surrounding waters."Oliver and his students have previously examined the ability of satellites to detect coastal plumes.Oliver participates in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observing System (MARACOOS), which has been carefully following Hurricane Sandy and its after effects. Headquartered at UD, the organization aggregates ocean data collected along the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to North Carolina to share with researchers, government officials and the public.As the storm headed up the coast, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) contacted MARACOOS for information. Xiao-Hai Yan, Mary A. S. Lighthipe Professor of Oceanography and director of the Center for Remote Sensing, worked to install the satellite dish at UD to provide real-time coverage of regional disaster events."We at UD provide satellite support for MARACOOS," Yan said. "So that is why we have our images focused on that area right now."According to NJDEP, Hurricane Sandy damage took several wastewater treatment facilities offline, causing untreated sewage into certain waterways. Recreational boaters, anglers and crabbers were advised on Friday, Nov. 2, to avoid those waterways and not eat any fish, crustaceans or shellfish from these waters due to contamination from bacteria and viruses. Additional advisories were issued on Nov. 5 and Nov. 6.Affected waterways are located in northern New Jersey and include the Hudson River, Passaic River, Hackensack River, Newark Bay, Kill Van Kull and Arthur Kill, Raritan Bay, Raritan River, Sandy Hook Bay and northern Barnegat Bay. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 9, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121109084106.htm | Super storm tracked by European Space Agency water mission | When millions of people are bracing themselves for the onslaught of extreme weather, as much information as possible is needed to predict the strength of the impending storm. The European Space Agency's SMOS mission again showed its versatility by capturing unique measurements of Hurricane Sandy. | As its name suggests, the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite was designed to measure how much moisture is held in soil and how much salt is held in the surface waters of the oceans.This information is helping to improve our understanding of the water cycle -- an essential component of the Earth system.However, this state-of-the-art Earth Explorer mission has demonstrated that its instrumentation and measuring techniques can be used to offer much more.Since SMOS has the ability to see through clouds and it is little affected by rain, it can also provide reliable estimates of the surface wind speeds under intense storms.Parts of the Caribbean and northeastern US are still suffering the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which is the largest Atlantic hurricane on record.Unusually, Sandy was a hybrid storm, tapping energy from the evaporation of seawater like a hurricane and from different air temperatures like a winter storm. These conditions generated a super storm that spanned an incredible 1800 km.As it orbited above, the satellite intercepted parts of Hurricane Sandy at least eight times as the storm swept over Jamaica and Cuba around 25 October, until its landfall in New Jersey, US, four days later.The data from these encounters have been used to estimate the speed of the wind over the ocean's surface.SMOS carries a novel microwave sensor to capture images of 'brightness temperature'. These images correspond to radiation emitted from the surface of Earth, which are then used to derive information on soil moisture and ocean salinity.Strong winds over oceans whip up waves and whitecaps, which in turn affect the microwave radiation being emitted from the surface. This means that although strong storms make it difficult to measure salinity, the changes in emitted radiation can, however, be linked directly to the strength of the wind over the sea.This method of measuring surface wind speeds was developed by scientists at the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea and Collect Localisation Satellites, CLS, within ESA's Earth Observation Support to Science Element programme.The method was originally used during Hurricane Igor in 2010, but has again proven accurate. During Hurricane Sandy, SMOS data compare well with realtime measurements from meteorological buoys as the super storm passed between the coast of the US and the Bermuda Islands.Moreover, NOAA's Hurricane Research Division flew a P-3 aircraft seven times into Hurricane Sandy to gather measurements of surface wind speeds, rain and other meteorological parameters. One of these airborne campaigns coincided with an overpass of the satellite.Keeping in mind the significantly differing sampling characteristics between the SMOS radiometer and the aircraft sensor, there was excellent agreement in the measurements. Both instruments consistently detected a wind band 150 km south of the hurricane eye, with a speed of just over 100 km/h.Being able to measure ocean surface wind in stormy conditions with the synoptic and frequent coverage of SMOS is paramount for tracking and forecasting hurricane strength.Although ESA's Earth Explorers are developed to address specific scientific issues, they continue to demonstrate their versatility. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 8, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121108152024.htm | Hurricane Sandy changes coastline in New Jersey | On October 29, 2012, lives were changed forever along the shores of New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and in the two dozen United States affected by what meteorologists are calling Superstorm Sandy. The landscape of the East Coast was also changed, though no geologist would ever use the word "forever" when referring to the shape of a barrier island. | Two aerial photographs show a portion of the New Jersey coastal town of Mantoloking, just north of where Hurricane Sandy made landfall. Both photographs were taken by the Remote Sensing Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The after image on October 31, 2012; the before image was acquired by the same group on March 18, 2007. The images were acquired from an altitude of roughly 7,500 feet, using a Trimble Digital Sensor System.The Mantoloking Bridge cost roughly $25 million when it was opened in 2005 to replace a bridge built in 1938. After Sandy passed through on October 29, 2012, the bridge was covered in water, sand, and debris from houses; county officials closed it because they considered it unstable.On the barrier island, entire blocks of houses along Route 35 (also called Ocean Boulevard) were damaged or completely washed away by the storm surge and wind. Fires raged in the town from natural gas lines that had ruptured and ignited. A new inlet was cut across the island, connected the Atlantic Ocean and the Jones Tide Pond. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 6, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121106114044.htm | Children, teens at risk for lasting emotional impact from Hurricane Sandy | After Hurricane Sandy's flood waters have receded and homes demolished by the storm repaired, the unseen aftershocks of the storm may linger for many children who were in the storm's path, particularly those whose families suffered significant losses. | "The lasting emotional impact of a storm like this can be more devastating than the physical damage the storm caused," says psychologist Esther Deblinger, PhD, the co-director of the Child Abuse Research, Education and Service (CARES) Institute at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Osteopathic Medicine. "Stress, anxiety and depression can affect anyone who experiences a natural disaster that results in the sudden loss of home or relocation to unfamiliar surroundings. The effect can be especially troubling on children and adolescents who don't have the same ability as adults to anticipate and cope with trauma."According to Dr. Deblinger, some children who experienced Hurricane Sandy's destruction will exhibit symptoms -- such as withdrawal, depression, sleeplessness and unusually aggressive behavior -- that are commonly associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Without help, there is a risk that these symptoms could last a lifetime.Dr. Deblinger suggests that parents and caregivers help children cope with the stress and anxiety resulting from Hurricane Sandy by:• Returning to normal routines, if possible, and engaging in rituals such as bedtime stories and family meals that that are comforting for children. • Minimizing the viewing of television coverage about the storm as the news can provoke anxiety in young people. • Encouraging optimism about managing the aftermath of the storm and preparing for the future. • Remembering that, because they are their children's most important role models, it is important for parents and caregivers to take care of themselves and engage in healthy coping strategies. • Reaching out for professional help if the trauma stress symptoms exhibited by their children do not subside over time on their own."While most children are resilient and will bounce back from the experience, others are going to need help to recover and feel safe again," Dr. Deblinger says. "In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we saw that the children who were most vulnerable to developing anxiety, and even PTSD or depression, had either experienced other significant trauma or emotional difficulties in their past, or had parents who were having difficulty coping with the effects of the storm."Dr. Deblinger says her recommendation that parents and guardians seek professional help for children whose symptoms do not subside is especially important. "Decades of research have shown that some children, particularly those who have experienced multiple trauma(s), don't eventually 'get over' or 'outgrow' their experiences," she notes. "Left to recover on their own, some children and adolescents may turn to alcohol, drugs and/or other ineffective ways of coping with the distressing feelings and debilitating symptoms associated with PTSD."In 2005, Dr. Deblinger made several trips to the Gulf region to help children recover from the effects of Hurricane Katrina and to train other therapists in the use of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), a treatment model that she developed with Drs. Judith Cohen and Anthony Mannarino. TF-CBT has been used worldwide to help children overcome stress disorders caused by a variety of traumas, including the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 5, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121105161400.htm | Children's preexisting symptoms influence their reactions to disaster coverage on TV | After a natural disaster occurs, we often find ourselves glued to the TV, seeking out details about the extent of the damage and efforts at recovery. While research has shown that exposure to this kind of coverage is associated with symptoms of traumatic stress in youths, new research published in | As part of an ongoing study, Carl Weems and his colleagues at the University of New Orleans followed 141 fourth through eighth graders, all of whom attended a single school in a New Orleans neighborhood that had experienced massive damage and flooding following Hurricane Katrina in August of 2005. The children were evaluated for PTSD symptoms 24 and 30 months after Katrina. The researchers also evaluated the children's PTSD symptoms and amount of disaster-related TV viewing one month after Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall on August 31, 2008.To assess perceptions of self-harm, the researchers asked the children whether they thought they would get hurt during Hurricane Gustav. To measure their overall distress, they asked the children how scared they were during the hurricane. The data were collected as part of the school's counseling curriculum, and the children completed all of the measures in a group classroom setting with the assistance of trained staff.About 25% of the children said they had watched "a lot" of disaster coverage on TV, while 31% said they had watched "a whole lot." The amount of Gustav-related coverage that the children watched was associated with their PTSD symptoms post-Gustav. Subsequent analyses revealed that pre-Gusatv symptoms, perceptions of self-harm, and viewing of disaster-related coverage were all predictors of symptoms of PTSD following Hurricane Gustav. But, as the researchers predicted, the relationship between TV viewing and post-Gustav symptoms depended on children's pre-Gustav symptoms. The relationship between TV viewing and post-Gustav symptoms of PTSD was significant only for children who had high levels of pre-Gustav symptoms.The study is one of the first to use a prospective design to examine the relationship between TV viewing and children's stress reactions after disasters, allowing the researchers to investigate the role of possible factors that might contribute to children's symptoms both before and after a natural disaster.Based on their findings, Weems and his colleagues believe that preexisting symptoms could be an important tool for identifying which children are most likely to be negatively affected by watching disaster-related coverage."Practitioners with young patients who have anxiety disorders such as PTSD may wish to emphasized to parents the potential effects of media," the researchers conclude. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 5, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121105140109.htm | Superstorm animation shows Sandy's explosive development | A computer animation produced by University of Delaware researchers shows the explosive development of Hurricane Sandy, the superstorm and its unusual track. | Matt Shatley, computer research specialist in UD's College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment (CEOE), assembled the animation by digitally stitching together about 800 infrared images taken by GOES, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, which keeps a continuous eye on the continental United States and the rest of the Western Hemisphere.The animation represents the period from Oct. 22 to Oct. 31.Link to animation: "Because the satellite is stationary, it's allows us to receive a constant stream of data and observe changes over the same geographic area," Shatley says, crediting UD geography professor and Delaware State Climatologist Daniel Leathers with the idea to create the animation. It took Shatley about a day to put the animation together."Once Sandy moved along the coast of the United States, it began to interact with a strong upper-level jet stream causing it to become a hybrid tropical/extratropical storm," Leathers notes. "As it moved over the waters of the Gulf Stream, Sandy continued to have tropical characteristics, as thunderstorms once again began to grow around the eye. In the end, this hybrid nature is what caused the storm to be so strong and so large!"The superstorm's impacts on Delaware included record flooding along the Atlantic and Delaware Bay coasts. The lower wind speeds across Delaware helped to lessen the number of downed trees and power lines compared to the state's northern neighbors, according to Leathers.Shatley serves as CEO's satellite receiving station specialist. Satellite receiving stations installed on the roof of Willard Hall Education Building two years ago enable UD researchers to access data as it streams from space.Shatley notes that CEOE researchers both at the Newark campus and at the Smith Global Visualization Room at the Hugh R. Sharp Campus in Lewes work closely with Rutgers ocean scientists on data visualization projects. With New Jersey and New York bearing the brunt of Sandy's wrath, the UD team is now giving their colleagues a helping hand."We're helping to supply their data needs," Shatley says. "We're backing them up." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 2, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121102151952.htm | Disaster defense: Balancing costs and benefits | Do costly seawalls provide a false sense of security in efforts to control nature? Would it be better to focus on far less expensive warning systems and improved evacuation procedures that can save many lives? | Seth Stein, a Northwestern University geologist, has teamed up with his father, Jerome Stein, an economist at Brown University, to develop new strategies to defend society against natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy as well as the effects of climate change.The approach, which considers costs and benefits while looking for the best solution, is based on a mathematical technique called optimization.The research is published in the October issue of the Geological Society of America journal "We're playing a high-stakes game against nature and often losing," said Seth Stein, the William Deering Professor of Geological Sciences in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern."Just in the past few years, both the Japanese tsunami and Hurricane Katrina did more than $100 billion in damage, despite expensive protection measures that were in place. Hurricane Sandy is likely to cost at least $20 billion," he said. "The question is how to do better. For example, should New York spend billions of dollars on a barrier to prevent flooding like the city saw this week?"Both the U.S. and Japanese governments decided to rebuild the defenses that failed essentially to the level they were before, only better. These decisions have been questioned, Seth Stein said. Critics argue that coastal defenses in Louisiana and surroundings should be built not just to withstand a hurricane like Katrina, but much more powerful ones that are known to occur there.The New York Times noted in discussing Japan's decision to rebuild the tsunami defenses: "Some critics have long argued that the construction of seawalls was a mistaken, hubristic effort to control nature as well as the kind of wasteful public works project that successive Japanese governments used to reward politically connected companies in flush times and to try to kick-start a stagnant economy."The problem, explained Jerome Stein, is that the decisions on how to protect against these hazards are made politically without careful consideration of alternatives. "There are complicated choices that have to be made, given that we don't know when a similar event will happen," he said. "We need ways to consider a range of options, each of which has different costs and benefits, and help communities involved make the most informed choices."The mathematical model the Steins have developed lets communities balance the costs and benefits of different strategies."We start from the losses that would occur if nothing was done to protect against future disasters and then calculate how much less they would be for increasing amounts of protection," said Jerome Stein, a professor emeritus of economics."That reduction is the benefit of more protection, but the increased protection also costs more," he said. "When you add the cost and benefit, you get a U-shaped curve with a minimum at the level of protection that is the best choice. More protection reduces losses, but the cost involved is more than that reduction. Less protection costs less, but produces higher losses. The bottom of the curve is the sweet spot."Although global warming results largely from human actions, many of its effects are expected to appear as natural disasters like coastal flooding, severe weather or droughts. The Steins' mathematical optimization model could be applied to these situations, too."Nations around the world have to decide both how to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide that cause warming and how to adapt to the effects of warming," Seth Stein said. "Choosing policies to address these large-scale problems is a much more complicated version of addressing a specific hazard in a limited area, so considering costs and benefits and looking for good solutions is even more crucial." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 2, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121102151341.htm | Overcoming Hurricane stress: Getting a grip after Sandy leaves town | It's more than chaos. It's more than uncertainty. The upheaval brought about by a natural disaster the likes of Hurricane Sandy forces us to reorganize how we see the world. | "We lose our mental mind map," says Henri Roca, MD, medical director of Greenwich Hospital's Integrative Medicine Program in Greenwich, Connecticut. "The challenge is that everything is different, from the places we usually go, the routes we drive, the colleagues and friends we see. We don't realize how much we depend on the things we consider solid and foundational," said Dr. Roca. "We lose our foundation, sometimes literally. Totally capable individuals under other circumstances don't know what to do," added Roca.Stress can manifest itself in feelings of listlessness, helplessness or indecisiveness, or as fear and anxiety, or with changes in sleep or appetite. "People tend to retreat to their houses, when the way out of the chaos and stress is exactly the opposite," said Dr. Roca, a New Orleans native who helped individuals cope with Hurricane Katrina stress before he relocated to Connecticut.To keep yourself strong and positive as much as possible when facing the adversity of natural disaster and upheaval, Dr. Roca suggests:1. Pay attention to nutrition, and eat a diet high in protein. Stay away from sweets and carbohydrates, especially simple carbs from white flour. You need protein to make neurotransmitters, the chemicals that help give you a sense of resilience. 2. Focus on exercise, even if it's just taking a walk as a family. Keep moving. Exercise helps to reduce depression. So does sunlight. 3. Seek other people. Talk to neighbors. Visit friends and family. Ask for help if you need it. 4. Re-prioritize. The things you need will come with time. The things you want will have to wait. 5. Find ways to relax. Gentle music, meditation, deep breathing or quiet time reading can provide a well-needed break. 6. Allow for your time to be flexible. Under the circumstances, you just can't be in a hurry. You have to let go of perfection. You do the best that you can do.With clocks going back the weekend after Hurricane Sandy, days will be shorter. Even one less hour of sunlight each day can trigger feelings of depression in susceptible people. This can make a stressful situation worse. If you have electricity in your home or office, use full spectrum lighting. With a physician's guidance, make sure you are getting enough Vitamin D, which means 2,000 IU for many adults. Other nutritional considerations may include SAMe and St. John's Wort, but be aware that interactions with other medications may occur if taken without proper medical supervision."The focus should be on maintaining nutrition, maintaining exercise, paying attention to the effect of light and the interaction with others, and then using some targeted supplements, remembering that during times of great stress nobody gets extra points for perfection," said Dr. Roca. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 2, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121102092002.htm | Climate change affecting overall weather patterns, may affect water availability, in California | California isn't going to face a superstorm like Hurricane Sandy because the Pacific Ocean is too cold to feed that kind of weather system. | But that doesn't mean California won't see extreme weather, say researchers from the University of California, Merced."We can see very big storms, and there are a couple of issues related to climate change to think about," said Roger Bales, director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute. "Most of our biggest storms are snow storms, which builds up snowpack in the mountains. The snowpack is a reservoir, storing water that will be used throughout the year across the state."But if you warm the climate," he said, "those storms become rain events -- there's more immediate runoff, less water storage, and the rain will actually melt some of the existing snowpack."The worst-case winter scenario would be a series of storms that cause flooding, said James Brotherton, warning-coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Hanford."We definitely have the potential to be impacted by major winter storms, or a series of them," Brotherton said."It's not uncommon during the winter, at least once, that we will see storms coming off the Pacific and drop more than 100 inches of snow in the mountains over short durations," said project scientist and lecturer Robert Rice, with SNRI. "That could translate into 10 inches of precipitable water -- numbers similar to what they're measuring in Hurricane Sandy. Snow events, which we commonly see in the Sierra, and across the western U.S., are generally unheard of on the East Coast, even during Hurricane Sandy, or a Nor'easter."There have been years when what's commonly called The Pineapple Express -- a persistent, strong flow of atmospheric moisture coming from the area near Hawaii -- has pummeled the West Coast. Those kinds of "atmospheric rivers" historically caused problems in California, flooding Sacramento and the Central Valley. But land use has changed dramatically from the last time that was a problem -- in the 1800s -- and California has much more control of its waterways, Brotherton said."We have very large storms that cross into California and affect our region -- not with the same widespread damage as Hurricane Sandy, but with water and wind that are comparable to hurricanes and tornados," Rice said.Rice cited a storm over the last weekend of November 2011 that included a wind event similar to a Category 3 tornado or Category 4 hurricane, with sustained winds higher than 100 mph and gusts of more than 150 mph."These storms would be very destructive and costly to urban areas," Rice said, "and they are more frequent than most people imagine. Not much attention is focused on them because they rarely affect large urban populations, more often being restricted to the Sierra."While scientists say it's impossible to attribute a single storm to climate change, the overall weather patterns across the U.S. are changing as the oceans warm.UC Merced researchers have repeatedly pointed out that California is likely to experience an increase in wildfires because of warmer temperatures.Because the state depends on snowpack in the mountains for its year-round water supply -- and if the state sees less snow and more rain, as Bales has written -- it's going to be even more critical that the state be able to accurately understand what its available water resources are each year.Bales, Rice and UC Merced and UC Berkeley colleagues have designed a low-cost senor system that could be used as to monitor water and snowpack statewide.They advocate for a unified system that would help maintain control of water resources more efficiently, and give users a clearer, real-time picture of the state's water resources.This year, forecasters aren't sure what the winter will look like because a weak El Niño climate pattern is in place across the southern Pacific this year."A strong El Niño means Northern California and the Pacific Northwest have a greater chance of below-normal precipitation, Southern California and the Southwest have a greater chance of above-average precipitation, and the center of the state has equal chances of either," Bales said. "But with a weak El Niño or neutral condition, either above or below normal conditions could prevail across the state." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 1, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121101172152.htm | NASA adds up Hurricane Sandy's rainfall from space | NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, or TRMM, satellite acts as a rain gauge in space as it orbits Earth's tropics. As TRMM flew over Hurricane Sandy since its birth on Oct. 21 it was gathering data that has now been mapped to show how much rain the storm dropped along the U.S. eastern seaboard. | Much of the recent deadly flooding along the northeastern United States coastlines was caused by super storm Sandy's storm swell. Strong winds from Sandy persistently pushed Atlantic Ocean waters toward the coast. High tides that occurred at the same time also magnified the effects of the storm swell. Some flooding was also caused by long periods of heavy rainfall that made rivers and streams overflow their banks.The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (MPA) is done at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The MPA monitors rainfall over a large area of the globe (from 60 degrees North latitude to 60 degrees South latitude). MPA rainfall totals over the eastern United States were calculated for the period from October 24-31, 2012 when super storm Sandy was making it's catastrophic transit through the area.The rainfall analysis indicated that the heaviest rainfall totals of greater than 260mm (10.2 inches) were over the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Rainfall totals of over 180mm (~ 7 inches) occurred over land in many areas near the Atlantic coast from New Jersey to South Carolina.The reported death toll from hurricane Sandy's flooding and high winds has now reached above 120. Over 70 deaths were caused by Sandy in the Caribbean and recent reports bring the total to greater than 50 in the United States.NOAA's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center issued their last advisory on Sandy's remnants on Oct. 31, stating that "multiple centers of circulation in association with the remnants of Sandy can be found across the lower Great Lakes."A visible image from NOAA's GOES-13 satellite at 1:31 p.m. EDT on Nov. 1, 2012 showed the remnant clouds from Sandy still lingered over the Great Lakes and stretched east to New England and north into Canada.The book on this super storm is now closed, though the clean-up will continue for a long time to come. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
November 1, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121101153426.htm | Hurricane Sandy: Power outage prediction model was accurate | A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins and Texas A&M universities spent days tracking Hurricane Sandy's power outage potential as the storm made its deadly march up eastern seaboard. Seth Guikema, an engineer at Johns Hopkins, and Steven Quiring, a geographer at Texas A&M, fed weather forecasts as well as real-time and historic hurricane data into a computer model to predict the total number of power outages. How'd they do? | Their predictions were accurate overall, when compared with figures released by the federal government on actual outages.The researchers' initial outage estimate, released on Saturday, Oct. 27, was that approximately 10 million people could be without power due to Sandy. The final estimate, released on Monday, Oct. 30, was for 8 to 10 million people to lose power. The team has now conducted a preliminary comparison with outage totals reported by the Department of Energy Situation Report for Wednesday, Oct. 31, at 3 p.m. EDT. The DOE-reported peak outage total was approximately 8.5 million customers. The predicted fraction of people without power was within 8 percent of the DOE-reported percentage of customers without power for the states of New York, Rhode Island, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. The model predicted that a higher percentage of customers would be out in Maryland and Delaware than were actually without power, likely due to lower-than-expected wind speeds in these areas. The model predicted a lower percentage of customers out than were actually out in both Connecticut and New Jersey.Guikema (pronounced Guy-keh-ma) and his team have developed a computer model built on outage data from 11 hurricanes to estimate the fraction of customers who will lose power, based on expected gust wind speed, expected duration of strong winds greater than 20 meters per second, and population density. Guikema's model may help power companies allocate resources by predicting how many people will be without power and where the most outages will take place, and it provides information that emergency managers can use to better prepare for storms. Guikema, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, says the goal is to restore power faster and save customers money. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 31, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121031214246.htm | NASA/NOAA's Suomi NPP captures night-time view of Sandy's landfall | As Hurricane Sandy made a historic landfall on the New Jersey coast during the night of Oct. 29, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on NASA/NOAA's Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite captured this night-time view of the storm. This image provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison is a composite of several satellite passes over North America taken 16 to18 hours before Sandy's landfall. | The storm was captured by a special "day-night band," which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as auroras, airglow, gas flares, city lights, fires and reflected moonlight. City lights in the south and mid-section of the United States are visible in the image.William Straka, associate researcher at Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, explains that since there was a full moon there was the maximum illumination of the clouds."You can see that Sandy is pulling energy both from Canada as well as off in the eastern part of the Atlantic," Straka said. "Typically forecasters use only the infrared bands at night to look at the structure of the storm. However, using images from the new day/night band sensor in addition to the thermal channels can provide a more complete and unique view of hurricanes at night."VIIRS is one of five instruments onboard Suomi NPP. The mission is the result of a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Department of Defense.On Monday, Oct. 29, at 8 p.m. EDT, Hurricane Sandy made landfall 5 miles (10 km) south of Atlantic City, N.J., near 39 degrees 24 minutes north latitude and 74 degrees 30 minutes west longitude. At the time of landfall, Sandy's maximum sustained winds were near 80 mph (130 kph) and it was moving to the west-northwest at 23 mph (37 kph). According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricane-force winds extended outward to 175 miles (280 km) from the center, and tropical-storm-force winds extended 485 miles (780 km). Sandy's minimum central pressure at the time of landfall was 946 millibars or 27.93 inches.Suomi NPP was launched on Oct. 28, 2011, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. One year later, Suomi NPP has orbited Earth more than 5,000 times and begun returning images and data that provide critical weather and climate measurements of complex Earth systems.Suomi NPP observes Earth's surface twice every 24-hour day, once in daylight and once at night. NPP flies 512 miles (824 kilometers) above the surface in a polar orbit, circling the planet about 14 times a day. NPP sends its data once an orbit to the ground station in Svalbard, Norway, and continuously to local direct broadcast users. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 31, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121031214244.htm | Satellite captures the life and death of Hurricane Sandy on Halloween | Hurricane Sandy is giving up the ghost on Halloween over Pennsylvania. As the storm weakened to a remnant low pressure area the NASA GOES Project released an animation of NOAA's GOES-13 satellite imagery covering Hurricane Sandy's entire life. | The GOES-13 satellite is managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and NASA's GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. creates images and animations from GOES data.The animation of Sandy's life runs from Oct. 23 through 31. It begins when Tropical Depression 18 strengthened into Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 23, 2012. The animation shows Hurricane Sandy blowing from the Caribbean to the mid-Atlantic where it became wedged between a stationary cold front over the Appalachians and a static high pressure air mass over maritime Canada. The air masses blocked the storm from moving north or east, as it would normally. Instead, their wintery dynamics amplified Sandy and drove it ashore in the mid-Atlantic.Sandy then became a ferocious Nor'easter that brought record storm surges to coastal N.J. and N.Y., plus blizzard conditions to the mountains. Unprecedented chaos occurred in lower New York City, such as flooding the subway system on the evening of Oct. 29. Total damage by the storm was estimated at $20 billion dollars.NOAA's National Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (NOAA/HPC) issued an advisory at 5 a.m. EDT on Oct. 31 that stated there was "no discernible surface circulation." Sandy had weakened to a surface trough (elongated area) of low pressure over western Pennsylvania.There are a lot of warnings and watches in effect as Sandy continues to wind down. Gale warnings and small craft advisories are in effect for portions of the great lakes. Small craft advisories are in effect along much of the Mid-Atlantic and northeast coasts.Flood and coastal flood watches, warnings and advisories are in effect over portions of the Mid-Atlantic and northeast states. Coastal flooding along portions of the Great Lakes is also possible.Winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories remain in effect for the mountains of southwest Pennsylvania, western Maryland, West Virginia, eastern Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, and extreme western North Carolina.Sandy is appropriately dying on Halloween, but the storm's effects will linger for some time. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 31, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121031125524.htm | Seniors particularly vulnerable in Hurricane Sandy's aftermath | Older adults left in the wake of Hurricane Sandy will likely suffer disproportionately in the days ahead, based on data from other recent natural disasters. | For example, three quarters of those who perished in Hurricane Katrina were over the age of 60, according to the spring 2006 edition of "Right now, most people who are responding to the hurricane are not trained in the needs of older adults," said Lisa M. Brown, PhD, a co-convener of GSA's Disasters and Older Adults Interest Group and an associate professor at the University of South Florida. "Likewise, very few geriatricians and gerontologists are trained in disaster preparedness, response, and recovery."The interest group will next meet during GSA's upcoming Annual Scientific Meeting, which will take place from November 14 to 18 in San Diego. Brown leads the group with fellow GSA member and co-convener Maggie Gibson, PhD, of St. Joseph's Health Care London in Ontario, Canada.The two also will chair a symposium, "Older Adults and Disasters: Are Gerontologists Paying Attention?" in San Diego. During this session, expert presenters will discuss the social, mental, and physical health concerns of older adults at all stages of a disaster and explain the critical role of gerontologists in shaping public health preparedness and responsiveness to disasters. They will also identify why older adults remain unusually vulnerable, relative to children and younger adults, during catastrophic events."We don't have continuity in the disaster infrastructure for older adults. Our efforts tend to be more reactive post-disaster than proactive pre-disaster," Brown said. "More research in this area will result in targeted policies and refined programs that would enhance existing systems of care."There also is a growing field of literature that outlines necessary steps for elder disaster preparedness in the face of an emergency. The The American Red Cross, at | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 30, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030143216.htm | NASA satellites capture Hurricane Sandy's massive size | NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image Sandy's massive circulation. Sandy covers 1.8 million square miles, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Ohio Valley, into Canada and New England. | The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image Sandy's massive circulation on Oct. 29 at 18:20 UTC (2:20 p.m. EDT). Sandy covered 1.8 million square miles, from the Mid-Atlantic to the Ohio Valley, into Canada and New England. Sandy made landfall hours after the MODIS image was taken.On Oct. 29, 2012 at 11 p.m. EDT, the center of Hurricane Sandy was just 10 miles (15 km) southwest of Philadelphia, Penn., near 39.8 North and 75.4 West. Sandy was still a hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (120 kph) and moving northwest at 18 mph (30 kph). Sandy's minimum central pressure had risen to 952 millibars. The hurricane-force-winds extended 90 miles (150 km) east of the center of circulation. Tropical-storm-force winds, however, went much further, as far as 485 miles (780 km).NASA's GOES Project created a "full-disk view" of NOAA's GOES satellite data, that captured a global view of Hurricane Sandy's birth to landfall. The animation of NOAA's GOES-13 and GOES-15 satellite observations were combined from Oct. 21-30, 2012 and showed the birth of Tropical Storm Sandy in the Caribbean Sea, the intensification and movement of Sandy in the Atlantic Ocean along the U.S. East Coast, and Hurricane Sandy make landfall in N.J. on Oct. 29 and move inland to Penn.At 2 a.m. EDT, on Oct. 29, Sandy's center was located just south of Lancaster, Penn. At 5 a.m. EDT, Sandy continued moving to the west-northwest at 15 knots (24 kph) and was located just 15 miles (24 km) east of York, Penn., and 90 miles (145 km) west of Philadelphia. Sandy was centered near 40.5 North and 77.0 West. Sandy's minimum central pressure continues to rise and was 960 millibars.Sandy's sustained winds were near 65 mph. Tropical-storm-force winds extend almost 1,000 miles. According to Weather Channel, the winds are going to continue being a problem from the northeast into the Ohio Valley today. The strongest winds are being experienced now in the Great Lakes Region.Hurricane Sandy has caused significant damage in New York City and along the Mid-Atlantic coast. Flooding has been reported from Maine to Va. During the morning hours on Oct. 29 (Eastern Daylight Time), nearly eight million people were without power this morning up and down the East coast. The Appalachian Mtns. received some heavy snow from western Md. down to Tenn. and N.C. As much as 26 inches of snow had fallen in Garrett County, Md. by the morning of Oct. 30. According to Reuters news, flooding along the U.S. East Coast was extensive.According to the NOAA's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (NOAA/HPC), there are high-wind warnings in effect including gale force winds over the coastal waters of the Mid-Atlantic States, New York and New England. Storm warnings are in effect for portions of the Mid-Atlantic coastal waters. Flood and flash flood watches and warnings are in effect over portions of the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern states.NOAA's HPC forecast on Oct. 29 calls for Sandy to move in a "west-northwest motion with reduced forward speed is expected today into western Penn. with a turn north into western New York tonight, Oct. 30. The cyclone will move into Canada on Wed., Oct. 31. Steady weakening is forecast during the next 48 hours."NOAA/HPC warns that gale-force winds will continue over parts of the Mid-Atlantic through New England on Oct. 29 and storm surge and tides can still cause normally dry areas along or near the coast to be flooded, especially during high tide.NOAA/HPC forecasts large rainfall totals for many areas in Sandy's reach. Far northeastern N.C. could expect 3 to 6 inches, while 4 to 8 inches more are possible over the Mid-Atlantic States on Oct. 30. Both areas can see isolated higher totals. Between 1 and 3 inches are possible with up to 5 inches in the southern tier of New York state and northeastward through New England.Snowfall between 2 and 3 feet are expected in the W.Va. mountains with higher totals through Oct. 30. Snowfall of 1 to 2 feet in the southwestern Va. and Ky. Mountains are expected, and between 12 and 18 inches along the N.C. and Tenn. Border and in western Md. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 30, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030142244.htm | Superstorm Sandy: Eight to ten million cumulative power outages predicted | Hurricane Sandy is weakening and moving faster than anticipated. Therefore a computer model developed by an engineer at The Johns Hopkins University is now predicting fewer power outages than initially expected. Seth Guikema is predicting that an overall cumulative total of 8 to 10 million people will lose power in the wake of the hurricane, based on the last storm track and intensity forecast at 2 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Oct. 30. | It is important to note that the computer model predicts cumulative outages, not peak outages. Cumulative means the total count of anyone who has lost power, versus peak, which is the number of people without power at any one point in time. For instance, in Maryland, the local utility company reported approximately 290,000 cumulative power outages as of 10:30 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 29, but their peak was approximately 210,000 because they were actively restoring outages while new outages were occurring.Guikema has been tracking Hurricane Sandy since late last week using his computer model, which in the early days of the storm used outage data from 11 hurricanes to estimate the fraction of customers who will lose power, based on expected gust wind speed, expected duration of strong winds greater than 20 meters per second, and population density. As the storm progressed, the model incorporated the actual track of the storm as well as the forecast. The predicted number of outages fluctuated throughout the storm based on the available forecast data.Guikema's model may help power companies allocate resources by predicting how many people will be without power and where the most outages will take place, and it provides information that emergency managers can use to better prepare for storms. Guikema, an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, says the goal is to restore power faster and save customers money. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 30, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030142242.htm | Economists weigh in on Sandy's impending financial fury | In addition to the immediate physical impacts Hurricane Sandy promises the Northeast, economists say the storm also will bring intrinsic financial effects that are sure to unfold over the next few days and linger through the coming months. | Monday and Tuesday marked the first unscheduled closure of the stock market since the 2011 terrorist attacks on 9/11."It's very rare for the markets to close, even for a weather event," said Mike Highfield, associate professor of finance and head of Mississippi State University's Department of Finance and Economics. "The last time the markets closed for two consecutive days due to weather was in 1888."Highfield said Monday that he expects the markets will reopen Wednesday, but noted those decisions are being made day by day."It's very costly any time the markets close because it removes liquidity for individuals who may want to exit a position," he said. "Many times we see a fall when the stock market does reopen, mainly because of the event itself which caused the closure."He explained that because Sandy affected the metropolitan areas of Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City, an immediate economic loss of an estimated $20 billion dollars could be felt because of property damage. He added that, overall, an estimated $60 billion economic loss could occur when considering lost work time, lost tax revenue on wages, a loss of spending effect and loss of commerce during business closures."When you consider how many people we are talking about in New York City alone, the impacts are huge. The economies of these heavily populated areas will essentially come to a grinding halt while we wait for the storm to pass," Highfield said. He added that while devastating storms come with an immediate negative shock, investors tend to rebuild vigorously with increased investing in a damaged area during recovery."After Sandy passes through, there will be opportunity for the construction industry and additional private spending. There will be initial devastation, but people will end up coming back, and reinvesting."In the short run, it can be very painful. In the long run, it may be somewhat of an economic shot, but it will take several, several months. In the meantime, there is a lot of agony and sadness from a human point of view."Highfield noted that losses could be harder felt from Sandy simply because the storm is targeting an area that most often sees hurricanes as a television event as they hit the Gulf Coast. This time, a lack of storm experience may amplify the impact, he observed.Associate professor of economics and director of Mississippi State's international business program Jon Rezek said he expects the storm will have a lower impact on the country's oil and gas prices than other hurricanes which have tracked through the Gulf Coast. Sandy's path has not impacted the nation's refineries along the Gulf, and so there has been no supply interruption, he said."For the most part, gasoline will flow from a lot of the refineries down here to the rest of the country, with fairly minimal impact in terms of a price increase," Rezek said. He added the total number of refineries operating along the east coast is eight, compared to 54 in the Gulf region."In total, these facilities in the Northeast refine only about 6 percent of the country's crude oil," Rezek said. "Given the relative lack of refining capacity in the Northeast, a supply disruption there over the next few days will not likely cause near the disruption that Gulf storms have on national or regional gasoline prices." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 30, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121030142240.htm | New England poultry producers may see effects from Sandy | Instead of an early snowfall this time of year, farmers along the eastern seaboard are dealing with flood waters and wind damage from Hurricane Sandy, which is expected to affect everything from poultry production to grocery prices. | In Maryland and Delaware, states ranked in the top 15 in young meat chicken production, the storm's aftermath could cause a domino effect, with power outages, transportation disruptions, and a potential lack of feed having a life-threatening result on poultry flocks.With Mississippi among the top five states in poultry production, professors such as Mary Beck, poultry science department head at Mississippi State University, are no strangers to how storms can influence the poultry market."Loss of power could affect the environment in chicken houses that could increase or decrease temperatures. Most poultry operations, however, should have back-up generators," Beck said. "Producers also are trying to make sure they have enough feed on hand to outlast the effects of the storm, in case hauling becomes an issue."Beck said poultry farmers also may have sped up production to decrease birds in houses and provide more product in stores for consumers who need to increase their food supplies in the storm's wake."Having product on the shelves could affect pricing due to increased demand, and if the trucking industry is unable to make deliveries, there could be difficulties with supply," she said.Transportation also becomes an issue if and when fuel deliveries to farmers are impacted. Tob Tabler, MSU Extension poultry specialist and professor, "If generators run out of fuel, then providing feed and water to flocks becomes a major issue. If there are power outages and no fuel for generators, environmental conditions -- temperature, ventilation, lighting -- are a big concern," said.The milder temperatures of fall see farmers with lower fuel and electricity inputs, and this can mean better bird performance for the season.Beck said, "Temperatures are not severe right now, so under normal circumstances fall is a good time to raise poultry. Very young birds tolerate heat better and older ones tolerate cold better, for short periods of time."While final numbers on any losses to the poultry industry could be weeks away, MSU agricultural economists who have witnessed the impact of hurricanes on the Magnolia State say the storm's impact on food pricing shouldn't be felt in the long term in the urban region where Sandy came ashore.John Michael Riley, an MSU Extension specialist and professor, said he sees this storm's aftermath having "short term shock" on New Englanders."Since these are not big agriculture production states such as Missouri or Kentucky, I see this as a short term consumption concern mainly involving restaurants and grocery stores," he said.Keith Coble, MSU Giles Distinguished Professor in Agricultural Economics, agreed. "There will definitely be short term disruptions, potential for price gouging, and more. But, I do predict things will get re-established very quickly," he said. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 29, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121029163853.htm | NASA examines Hurricane Sandy as it affects the Eastern U.S. | On Monday, Oct. 29, Hurricane Sandy was ravaging the Mid-Atlantic with heavy rains and tropical storm force winds as it closed in for landfall. Earlier, NASA's CloudSat satellite passed over Hurricane Sandy and its radar dissected the storm get a profile or sideways look at the storm. NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared view of the cloud tops and NOAA's GOES-13 satellite showed the extent of the storm. The National Hurricane Center reported at 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 29 that Hurricane Sandy is "expected to bring life-threatening storm surge and coastal hurricane winds plus heavy Appalachian snows." | To understand the structure, extent and behavior of Sandy, NASA's CloudSat passed over Sandy at 1832 UTC (10:32 a.m. EDT) on Saturday, Oct. 27, 2012, when the storm was about 335.5 miles (540 km) southeast of Charleston, S.C. CloudSat data was used to create a profile image of Hurricane Sandy by Shigeru Suzuki at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.At the time of the image Sandy's maximum sustained winds were near 75 mph and Sandy had a minimum pressure of 961 millibars making the storm a Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Sandy was moving slowly to the northeast at 11 mph almost parallel to the southeast United States coast and directly traversing the Gulf Stream.CloudSat passed over Sandy just west of the hurricane's inner core. Light to moderate precipitation associated with parts of the outer bands of Hurricane Sandy were moving on shore into parts of North Carolina where CloudSat intersected the system. CloudSat showed heavier showers and thunderstorms further south and east of the Atlantic coastline over the open water."The CloudSat signal tends to attenuate or dampen in these areas of heavier convection when rain drops become larger than 3 mm (0.11 inch) in diameter," said Natalie Tourville, a researcher who works with CloudSat data at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colo. "The cloud shield associated with Hurricane Sandy extended well over 1,000 km from the storm center covering parts of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and Virginia and West Virginia with mid and high level cloudiness areas of cirrus and altocumulus," she said.On Oct. 29 at 1 a.m. EDT the National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that the center of Hurricane Sandy was located near latitude 37.5 north and longitude 71.5 west. This was about 260 miles (415 km) south-southeast of New York City, and 205 miles (330 km) southeast of Atlantic City, N.J. Sandy was moving north-northwest at 18 mph. Maximum sustained winds have increased to 90 mph (140 kph).According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles (280 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 485 miles (780 km). Sustained tropical-storm-force winds are occurring along the coasts of southern New Jersey, Delaware, and eastern Virginia, and extend as far inland as the central and southern Chesapeake Bay.The minimum central pressure estimated from hurricane hunter Aircraft data is 943 millibars, which dropped from 946 millibars at 8 a.m. EDT. A drop in atmospheric pressure indicates intensification.NHC noted that surge-related flooding depends on the relative timing of the surge and the tidal cycle and can vary greatly over short distances. Because of Sandy's large wind field, elevated water levels could span multiple tide cycles resulting in repeated and extended periods of coastal and bayside flooding. Dangerous surf conditions will continue from Florida through New England for the next couple of days.NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of Hurricane Sandy battering the U.S. East coast on Monday, Oct. 29 at 9:10 a.m. EDT that showed the immense extent of the storm. The image was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Tropical Storm force winds extend almost 500 miles from the center making it almost 1,000 miles in diameter.Other watches and warnings for gale, storm and high winds are in force to the north of the tropical storm warning area and issued by the National Weather Service. Hurricane local statements have also been issued for those areas under tropical storm warning.Infrared satellite imagery provides temperature data to forecasters that identify the cloud heights and strength of different parts of a storm. Basically, the higher the cloud top is, the colder the temperature, and the stronger the storm. Strongest storms have the potential for the heaviest rainfall rates.To measure those cloud top temperatures, NASA uses the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The AIRS instrument captured infrared imagery of Hurricane Sandy on Monday, Oct. 29 at 0711 UTC (3:11 a.m. EDT) that showed some strong thunderstorms and the extent of Sandy's reach from the Carolinas into the Ohio Valley and eastern Canada. The thunderstorms in the purple areas were reaching high into the troposphere where cloud top temperatures are as cold as -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius).At 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 29, the National Hurricane Center said that Hurricane-force winds are expected along the U.S. East Coast between Chincoteague, Va.and Chatham, Mass. This Includes the Tidal Potomac from Cobb Island to Smith Point, the middle and upper Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay and the coasts of the northern Delmarva Peninsula, New Jersey, the New York City area, Long Island, Connecticut and Rhode Island.Tropical-storm-force winds are expected north of Chatham to Merrimack River Mass., the lower Chesapeake Bay and south of Chincoteague, Va. to Duck, N.C., the northern endpoint of the Tropical Storm Warning.Hurricane Sandy is expected to bring heavy rainfall to the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S., and snowfall to the mountain areas.The National Hurricane Center bulletin on Oct. 29 at 8 a.m. EDT, noted that rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches are expected over far northeastern N.C. with isolated maximum totals of 8 inches possible. Rainfall amounts of 4 to 8 inches are expected over portions of the Mid-Atlantic States, including the Delmarva Peninsula with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches possible. Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches with isolated maximum amounts of 5 inches are possible from the southern tier of New York state northeastward through New England.Snowfall is another expectation from Sandy as Arctic air sits to the west. Blizzard warnings are posted from western Maryland to southwestern Virginia today. Snow accumulations of 2 to 3 feet are expected in the mountains of W.Va. with locally higher totals today through Wed., Oct. 31. Between 1to 2 feet of snow is expected in the mountains of southwestern Va. to the Ky. Border with 12 to 18 inches of snow in the mountains near the N.C. and Tenn. border and in the mountains of Western Md. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 29, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121029092635.htm | NASA's TRMM Satellite analyzes Hurricane Sandy in 3-D | NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, or TRMM satellite, can measure rainfall rates and cloud heights in tropical cyclones, and was used to create an image to look into Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 28, 2012. Owen Kelly of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created this image of Hurricane Sandy using TRMM data. | At 2:20 p.m. EDT on Sunday, Oct. 28, Hurricane Sandy was a marginal category 1 hurricane and its eyewall is modest, as TRMM reveals, which gives forecasters and scientists hints about its possible future strength.The eyewall appeared somewhat compact with its 40 km (24.8 miles) diameter. The eyewall contained only relatively light precipitation, and none of Sandy's eyewall storm cells managed to burst through, or even reach, the tropopause which has about a 10 km (6.2 miles) height at mid-latitudes. Evidence of the weak updrafts in the eyewall comes from the fact that the TRMM radar's reflectivity stayed under 40 dBZ, a commonly cited signal strength at which updrafts can be vigorous enough to form hail and to lift smaller ice particles up through the tropopause and into the stratosphere.But placed in context, the TRMM-observed properties of Hurricane Sandy's eyewall are evidence of remarkable vigor. Most hurricanes only have well-formed and compact eyewalls at category 3 strength or higher. Sandy was not only barely a category 1 hurricane, but Sandy was also experiencing strong wind shear, Sandy was going over ocean typically too cold to form hurricanes, and Sandy had been limping along as a marginal hurricane for several days.Kelley said, "With infrared satellite observations used in imagery one can speculate about what the sort of convective (rising air that form the thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone) storms are developing under the hurricane's cloud tops, but Sandy was sneaking up the East Coast too far out at sea for land-based radars to provide definitive observations of the rain regions inside of the hurricane's clouds." The radar on the TRMM satellite could provide this missing information during this overflight of Hurricane Sandy.The TRMM satellite also showed that the super-sized rainband that extended to the west and north of the center did contain vigorous storm cells, as indicated by the red regions of radar reflectivity in excess of 40 dBZ. This rainband is expected to lash the coast well before the hurricane's center make landfall. Even further west, at the upper left corner of the image, one can see two small storm cells. These storm cells are the southern-most tip of the independent weather system that is coming across the United States and that is expected to merge and possibly reinvigorate the remnants of Hurricane Sandy after Sandy makes landfall.On Oct. 29 at 5 a.m. EDT the National Hurricane Center noted that the center of Hurricane Sandy was located near latitude 35.9 north and longitude 70.5 west. This was about 410 miles east southeast of Washington, D.C. Sandy was moving north at 15 mph and its winds had increased since Oct. 28. Maximum sustained winds are now near 85 mph. Tropical Storm force winds extend almost 500 miles from the center.At 8 a.m. EDT on Oct. 29, the National Hurricane Center reported tropical-storm-force winds were occurring along the coasts of southern New Jersey Delaware and eastern Virginia and extend as far inland as the central and southern Chesapeake Bay.Sandy is forecast to make landfall along the southern new jersey coast tonight. However sandy will severely impact the region well before it comes ashore.TRMM stands for Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, and it is a joint mission between NASA and JAXA, the Japan Space Exploration Agency. Some of the questions about hurricanes left unanswered by the TRMM satellite will be explored by the Global Precipitation Measuring (GPM) satellite scheduled for launch in 2014. For more information, visit | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 28, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121028111111.htm | NASA satellites see Sandy expand as storm intensifies | Hurricane Sandy is a Category 1 hurricane on Oct. 28, according to the National Hurricane Center. Sandy has drawn energy from a cold front to become a huge storm covering a large area of the eastern United States. NASA satellite imagery provided a look at Sandy's 2,000-mile extent. | Hurricane Sandy's reach has grown on satellite imagery, and during the morning of Oct. 28, the storm intensified as there was a large pressure drop. The atmospheric pressure dropped to 951 millibars during the morning of Oct. 28, an eyewall formed. When a storm's atmospheric pressure drops by a large amount as Sandy has done, it's a sign the storm is strengthening tremendously.Sandy continues to merge with a cold front. The combination is expected to bring heavy rainfall and tropical-storm-force sustained winds for a couple of days to the mid-Atlantic and northeastern United States, and cause flooding, downed trees and power outages.The National Hurricane Center warned early on Sunday, Oct. 28, that "Sandy expected to bring life-threatening storm surge flooding to the Mid-Atlantic coast including Long Island sound and New York Harbor, winds expected to be near hurricane force at landfall." Storm surge in the Long Island sound is expected between 6 and 11 feet.The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 26 at 16:10 UTC (12:10 p.m. EDT). The image showed the massive extent of its clouds, covering about 2,000 miles. Sandy's center was in the Bahamas at that time, and an eye was clearly visible. Sandy's western clouds were brushing the southeastern U.S. coast during the time of the image.NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 28 at 1302 UTC (9:02 a.m. EDT) that showed the massive extent of the storm, covering about one-third of the U.S. A line of clouds from the Gulf of Mexico stretching north into Sandy's western circulation are associated with the cold front that Sandy is merging with. Sandy's western cloud edge was already over the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S.This hybrid Sandy is also a super soaker. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite can measure rainfall from space. Oct. 27 at 1907 UTC (3:07 p.m. EDT), NASA's TRMM satellite saw that rain associated with Hurricane Sandy storm's center, was moderate and falling at a rate of 20 to 40 mm per hour (1.57 inches per hour). The heaviest rainfall at the time of the image was falling west of the center (and closest to the U.S. East Coast) at a rate of more than 2 inches (50 mm) per hour.During the morning hours of Oct. 28, Sandy has been maintaining a small area of deep (strong) convection (rising air that forms the thunderstorms that make up the hurricane) near the center.The National Hurricane Center has issued Flood Watches for the U.S. East coast and interior areas because Sandy is huge, slow moving and can drop up to 2 inches of rain per hour.As of Oct. 28, 2012, the National Hurricane Center predicts rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches over far northeastern North Carolina with isolated maximum totals of 8 inches possible. Rainfall amounts of 4 to 8 inches are expected over portions of the mid-Atlantic states, including the Delmarva Peninsula, with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches possible.Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches with isolated maximum amounts of 5 inches are possible from the southern tier of New York State northeastward through New England.Watches and warnings effective Sunday, Oct. 28, included a tropical storm warning in effect from Cape Fear to Duck, N.C., the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, and Bermuda.The tropical storm warnings are somewhat misleading for this massive storm because it is expected to bring its tropical-storm-force winds far inland over a period of days. As a result there are high wind warnings and flood watches up and down the mid-Atlantic coast and northeastern United States that extend quite a distance inland, and are too numerous to mention. For weather warnings in your area, visit On Oct. 28 at 8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC) Sandy's maximum sustained winds were still near 75 mph (120 kph). The National Hurricane Center discussion noted that "there is still some short-term potential for sandy to intensify as a tropical cyclone...especially since it will be traversing the Gulf Stream today." Sandy's center was near 32.1 North latitude and 73.1 west longitude, about 260 miles (420 km) southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. That's also about 395 miles (635 km) south of New York City.Sandy is moving northeast near 10 mph (17 kph) and is expected to continue in that direction for the rest of the day today. However, on Monday, Oct. 28, Sandy is expected to be drawn back to the coast by a low pressure area and turn north and northwest. Sandy will approach the coast of the mid-Atlantic for a landfall late Monday night, Oct. 28.Storm surge is expected to be big factor as Sandy approaches the mid-Atlantic coast. Very rough surf and high and dangerous waves are expected to be coupled with the full moon. The National Hurricane Center noted that the combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters. The water could reach the following depths above ground if the peak surge occurs at the time of high tide.The National Hurricane Center identified the following areas for storm surges:When a storm becomes extra-tropical and its core changes from warm to cold, the strongest winds spread out and the storm expands. According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricane-force winds again expanded on Sunday, Oct. 28, from 100 miles to 175 miles from the center. Tropical-storm-force winds that extended out 450 miles from the center on Sat. Oct. 27 now extend to 520 miles from the center.The wind field of Sandy will continue to grow in size during the next couple of days and impact states from the Carolinas, west to the Ohio Valley, and north into Maine and Canada.Updates on Sandy are available from the National Hurricane Center at: NASA satellites will continue to provide forecasters at the National Hurricane Center with infrared, visible, cloud height, temperature and rainfall data as Sandy continues to affect the U.S. East Coast. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 27, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121027164036.htm | Sandy to erode many Atlantic beaches | Nearly three quarters of the coast along the Delmarva Peninsula is very likely to experience beach and dune erosion as Hurricane Sandy makes landfall, while overwash is expected along nearly half of the shoreline. | The predictions of coastal change for the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia peninsula is part of a larger assessment of probable coastal change released by the U.S. Geological Survey Friday."Model forecasts are run anew for each hurricane, as each case has unique factors in terms of storm intensity, timing with respect to tides, angle of approach, and must account for ever-changing details of coastal dune configuration," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "These models help us understand where emergency management resources might be most needed."Overwash, the landward movement of large volumes of sand from overtopped dunes, is forecasted for portions of the east coast with the projected landfall of the storm. The severity of overwash depends on the strength of the storm, the height of the dunes, and how direct a hit the coast takes."On the Delmarva Peninsula, near the storm's expected landfall, close to three quarters of the sandy coast is expected to see beach and dune erosion. Fifteen percent of the coast is very likely to be inundated by waves and storm surge," said USGS Oceanographer Hilary Stockdon from the USGS St. Petersburg Coastal and Marine Science Center.In these areas, waves and storm surge would transport large amounts of sand across coastal environments, depositing sand both inland and offshore and causing significant changes to the landscape, Stockdon noted.The models show that along the New Jersey shore, 81 percent of the coast is very likely to experience beach and dune erosion, while 7 percent is very likely to experience overwash. It also indicates that on the south shore of Long Island, N.Y., including Fire Island National Seashore, 43 percent of the coast is very likely to experience beach and dune erosion. Overwash and inundation are not expected in these areas because of the relative high dune elevations.According to USGS geologist Cheryl Hapke, many of the sandy beaches along the mid-Atlantic Coast have become increasingly vulnerable to significant impacts such as erosion because of past storms, including Hurricanes Ida (2009) and Irene (2011), as well as large northeastern storms in 2005 and 2007."Beaches and dunes often serve as the first line of defense for coastal communities against flooding and other hazards associated with extreme storm" said Hapke, "Any compromise to these features means that storm-related hazards are more likely to threaten coastal property, infrastructure, and public safety during a future extreme storm event."Beach and dune erosion occurs when storm surge and waves collide with the base of a dune, termed collision in the model, and wash away significant amounts of sand. Overwash happens when these forces exceed dune height and move sand inland. Inundation is a process by which an entire beach system is submerged and, in extreme cases, can result in island breaching.The USGS coastal change model forecasting likely dune erosion and overwash from the storm can be viewed online: For the latest forecasts on the storm, listen to NOAA radio. For information on preparing for the storm, visit | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 27, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121027163951.htm | USGS storm-surge sensors deployed ahead of Tropical Storm Sandy | Storm response crews from the U.S. Geological Survey are installing more than 150 storm-tide sensors at key locations along the Atlantic Coast -- from the Chesapeake Bay to Massachusetts -- in advance of the arrival of Tropical Storm Sandy. | Working with various partner agencies such as NOAA, FEMA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the USGS is securing the storm-tide sensors, frequently called storm-surge sensors, to piers and poles in areas where the storm is expected to make landfall. The instruments being installed will record the precise time the storm-tide arrived, how ocean and inland water levels changed during the storm, the depth of the storm-tide throughout the event, and how long it took for the water to recede."In the hours and days before Irene made its epic sweep up the eastern seaboard last year, USGS deployed a record number of storm-surge sensors that yielded important new information on storm tides along some of the most populated coastline in the United States," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "Now with Sandy we have the opportunity to test and improve predictive models of coastal zone impact based on what we previously learned."Storm-tides are increases in ocean water levels generated at sea by extreme storms and can have devastating coastal impacts. In locations where tidal forecasts are known, the sensors being installed can also help determine storm surge. For differences between storm-surge and tidal-surge, visit the National Hurricane Center's website (This information will be used to assess storm damage, discern between wind and flood damage, and improve computer models used to forecast future coastal inundation.In addition, rapid deployment gauges will be installed at critical locations to provide real-time information to forecast floods and coordinate flood-response activities in the affected areas. The sensors augment a network of existing U.S. Geological Survey streamgages, which are part of the permanent network of more than 7,500 streamgages nationwide.Of the sensors deployed specifically for Sandy, eight have real-time capability that will allow viewing of the storm-tide as the storm approaches and makes landfall. Besides water level, some of these real-time gauges include precipitation and wind sensors that will transmit all data hourly. All data collected by these sensors and the existing USGS streamgage network will be available on the USGS Storm-Tide Mapper link at Providing information to support future forecasts could ultimately save lives during future storms. These sensors were deployed for the first time during Hurricane Rita in 2005. Before then, scientists had limited data available to study the effects of storm surge."Forecasters at the National Weather Service rely on USGS real-time and long-term data to improve storm surge models and prepare storm-tide warnings," said Brian McCallum, assistant director of the USGS Georgia Water Science Center, who is helping coordinate the sensor installation effort. "Floodplain managers, federal, state and local emergency preparedness officials, emergency responders, scientists and researchers all benefit from the storm-tide and associated flood data. It's useful for flood damage prevention and public safety."The USGS studies the impacts of hurricanes and tropical storms to better understand potential impacts on coastal areas. Information provided through the sensor networks provides critical data for more accurate modeling and prediction capabilities and allows for improved structure designs and response for public safety.The USGS also continuously monitors water levels and flows at thousands of the nation's streams on a real-time basis. The public can access this information for their area at the USGS Current Streamflow Conditions web page (For the latest forecasts on the storm, listen to NOAA radio. For information on preparing for the storm, visit | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 27, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121027120535.htm | NASA satellites see Sandy become a hurricane again and strong winds expand | Sandy weakened to a Tropical Storm and strengthened back into a hurricane early on Saturday (Oct. 27), and its pressure was dropping, meaning that the storm is intensifying as it becomes an extra-tropical storm. NASA's TRMM satellite identified heavy rain falling within the system and NOAA's GOES satellites provided a picture of Sandy's massive size. | NASA's TRMM satellite identified a huge span of moderate rainfall with heaviest rains happening north and east of Sandy's center. NOAA's GOES satellite imagery clearly shows the extent of Sandy's massive cloud cover and the long line of clouds associated with the cold front that stretches from Maine to the Gulf coast.Sandy continues to merge with a cold front and is creating a monster storm with a massive reach. The combination is expected to bring heavy rainfall and tropical-storm-force sustained winds for a couple of days to the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S. beginning late Sunday. Sandy is truly the "bride of Frankenstorm" because the storm's circulation is over 2,000 miles and the wind field of tropical-storm-force winds is hundreds of miles in diameter. The Weather Channel cited a concern for power outages from Maine to Virginia as a result of this storm.NOAA's GOES satellite clearly shows the extent of the monster merging of systems. A hybrid image of NOAA's GOES-13 and GOES-15 satellite created on Oct. 27 by the University of Wisconsin's Space Science and Engineering Center, Madison, provided a full view of the cloud cover from Hurricane Sandy interacting with the long line of clouds associated with the cold front approaching the eastern U.S. The composite image was created using SSEC's McIDAS software and NOAA's GOES imager satellite imagery.Washington, D.C. is in the southern end of the bullseye area of Sandy's huge center, and that target area stretches all the way to New York City. That's just the bullseye area, according to the National Hurricane Center. Because Sandy is thousands of miles wide, the storm's powerful effects will be felt all the way to Maine and include strong winds and flooding rainfall. Coastal flooding a very serious concern along the coasts especially in the vicinity of New York City and Raritan Bay, according to the Weather Channel.Washington, D.C. and New York and all areas in between, including Philadelphia, can expect heavy rain and damaging winds over a couple of days. Because Sandy is coming from the south, the conditions will deteriorate from south to north, with Washington, D.C. feeling the worst effects first.In the Nation's Capital, a flood watch was already posted along the D.C. and Baltimore corridor west to Frederick County, Md. and south to southern Maryland beginning Sunday night, Oct. 27 and extended through Tuesday, Oct. 30. Rainfall will depend on the speed and track of the storm, but heavy rainfall can flood rivers and streams through the rest of the week. Like the heavy rainfall, damaging winds of tropical-storm-force are expected over the same period. Tropical-storm-force winds range between 37 mph and 73 mph. In addition, coastal flooding is a serious concern because of the easterly winds pushing the ocean waters against the shoreline, and this is coupled with higher than normal tides by the current full moon.The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite flew above hurricane Sandy on Friday, Oct. 26 at 1509 UTC (11:09 a.m. EDT) and gathered data on rainfall and cloud heights, revealing the power within this monster storm.Hal Pierce of NASA's TRMM Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created rainfall and 3-D imagery of the storm that revealed the rate at which rain was falling throughout the mammoth storm, and the heights of the thunderstorms within, which are a clue to the storm's power. The higher the thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone, the stronger the overall storm, and the heavier the rainfall in those areas of highest cloud tops.TRMM data showed that rainfall was very heavy in some bands north of Sandy's center of circulation and that Sandy's surface center of circulation is exposed south of the main area of convection. The TRMM rainfall analysis was created using data from two instruments on TRMM: TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR).Pierce created a 3-D view of Sandy, also using TRMM Precipitation Radar (PR) data that showed that the thunderstorms north of Sandy's center of circulation reached heights of a little above 11km (~6.8 mile). Radar reflectivity values of a little over 45.8dBZ were found in these storms indicating that there were moderate to heavy rain showers in that area.The National Hurricane Center (NHC) indicated that there was significant movement of cold air over the southwest side of Sandy's circulation on Friday, as a result of the cold front moving in from the west. This is expected to speed up Sandy's change to a post-tropical low.A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Florida East Coast from Sebastian Inlet to Saint Augustine, South Santee River to Duck including Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds, and Great Abaco and Grand Bahama Islands. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for the Savannah River to South Santee Rive, the Florida east coast from north of Saint Augustine to Fernandina Beach and Bermuda.On Sat. Oct. 27, at 8 a.m. EDT, Hurricane Sandy's maximum sustained winds were near 75 mph (120 kph). Sandy is a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane wind scale, and regained hurricane strength after weakening to a tropical storm earlier in the day. Sandy was centered near latitude 28.8 north and 76.8 west. Sandy is moving north-northeast near 10 mph (17 kph) and is expected to turn northeast then north on Oct. 28, while slowing down. The center of Sandy will continue moving away from the northwestern Bahamas this morning and will move parallel to the southeast coast of the United States through the weekend, according to the National Hurricane Center.Storm surge is expected to be big factor as Sandy approaches the Mid-Atlantic coast. Very rough surf and high and dangerous waves are expected to be coupled with the full moon. The National Hurricane Center noted that the combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters. The water could reach the following depths above ground if the peak surge occurs at the time of high tide.As happens when any storm becomes extra-tropical, Sandy will go from a warm to cold core center and the strongest winds spread out and the storm will expand. According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricane force winds have expanded on Saturday, Oct. 27 and now extend outward up to 100 miles from the center. On Oct. 26, those hurricane-force winds were only 35 miles out from the center. Tropical-storm-force winds have also expanded over a huge area on Sat. Oct. 27 and now extend 450 miles from the center! Just a day before, those tropical storm force winds extended outward up to 275 miles (445 km). The wind field of Sandy will contine to grow in size during the next couple of days. The storm's circulation now reaches more than 2,000 miles.NASA satellites will continue to provide forecasters at the National Hurricane Center with infrared, visible, cloud height, temperature and rainfall data as Sandy closes in on the U.S. East Coast. Updates on Sandy are available from the National Hurricane Center at: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 26, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121026143305.htm | Hurricane Sandy looks as 'Frankenstorm' approaching U.S. East Coast | NASA's TRMM satellite revealed Hurricane Sandy's heavy rainfall and the storm is expected to couple with a powerful cold front and Arctic air to bring that heavy rainfall to the Mid-Atlantic and northeastern U.S. Some forecasters are calling this combination of weather factors "Frankenstorm" because of the close proximity to Halloween. | NASA satellites have provided forecasters at the National Hurricane Center with rainfall data, infrared, visible and other data on Sandy and will continue to do so. Dr. Marshall Shepherd who works with TRMM data provided an insight into the storm's development.The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite had a partial view of hurricane Sandy on Oct. 25 at 1425 UTC (10:25 a.m. EDT) after it had passed over Cuba and moved into the Bahamas. An eye was hard to find but TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) data showed that a large area of intense rainfall was occurring around Sandy's center of circulation. Hal Pierce of NASA's TRMM Team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. used a GOES-13 satellite image captured at the same time to fill in the part of the image not viewed by TRMM to create a total picture of the storm.With its combination of passive microwave and active radar sensors, TRMM is ideally suited to measure rainfall from space. For increased coverage, TRMM can be used to calibrate rainfall estimates from other additional satellites. The TRMM-based, near-real time Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) made at NASA Goddard can be used to rainfall over a wide portion of the globe. TMPA rainfall totals were tallied for the seven-day period from Oct. 18-25, 2012.The heaviest rainfall occurred over open ocean where totals were as high as 325 millimeters. Rainfall amounts as high as 250 millimeters were measured over eastern Cuba and some extreme southern areas of Hispaniola.Hurricane Sandy passed over the islands of Jamaica and Cuba causing at least 21 deaths. Extensive flooding and other damage were reported near the capital city of Kingston and other areas of Jamaica.The heavy rainfall potential is evident in the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) forecast on Oct. 26. The NHC noted that Sandy is expected to produce total rainfall amounts of 6 to 12 inches across Haiti and the Dominican Republic with isolated maximum totals of 20 inches possible. Rainfall totals of 3 to 6 inches are expected over portions of the Bahamas with isolated maximum amounts of 12 inches possible. Rainfall totals of one to three inches are expected across the Florida Keys into southeastern and east-central Florida with isolated maximum amounts of six inches possible. Rainfall totals of 4 to 8 inches are possible over far eastern North Carolina.Dr. Marshall Shepherd, University of Georgia Professor and Research Meteorologist has worked with TRMM satellite data since its launch in 1997. Dr. Shepherd provided his take on the storm event. "Models are coming into consensus on a landfall, if you will, in the DelMarVa area. Comparisons are being made to the Perfect Storm of 1991, but many folks won't remember that. Storm will bring very strong winds (hurricane force) over a strong area. Remember the Derecho of June 29, 2012. Expand that to the entire Delaware/Maryland/Virginia and New York/New Jersey region."Shepherd said that the event will bring significant rains and inland freshwater flooding , that he said was often the deadliest threat from tropical systems. He also cited concerns about the storm surge and coastal flooding as full moon will mean elevated water levels/tides coupled with the storm-induced surge. Finally, he noted, there is likely to be heavy wet snow into the inland and higher elevations of the effected region. "Pay attention to the cone or area of influence rather than a specific track as the storm will affect an area not a point," he said."Advances from NASA satellites, aircraft, and models are essential for ingest into the models, assessing storm locations and intensity, and testing future modeling techniques. It may not be obvious to many, but our warning and prediction capability does have traceability to the NASA program in numerous ways and I have been happy to play some small role as a former NASA scientist and current member of the NASA Precipitation Science Team and Earth Science Subcommittee of the NASA Advisory Council."A Hurricane Warning is in effect for the Northwestern Bahamas Except Andros Island. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the Central Bahamas, Florida East Coast from Ocean Reef to Flagler Beach, Lake Okeechobee and Andros Island in the northwestern Bahamas. A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Savannah River to Oregon Inlet North Carolina, Pamlico Sound, the Florida east coast from North of Flagler Beach to Fernandina Beach, the Florida Upper Keys from Ocean Reef to Craig Key, and Florida Bay.On Friday, Oct. 26, at 8 a.m. EDT, Hurricane Sandy's maximum sustained winds were near 80- mph (130 kph). Sandy is a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane wind scale. Some weakening is possible during the next day or so, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was centered near latitude 26.4 north and longitude 76.9 west. Sandy is moving northwest near 10 mph (17 kph) and is expected to turn north and then northeast on Oct. 27, while slowing down.Storm surge is expected to be big factor as Sandy approaches the Mid-Atlantic coast. Very rough surf and high and dangerous waves are expected to be coupled with the full moon. The National Hurricane Center noted that the combination of a dangerous storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters. The water could reach the following depths above ground if the peak surge occurs at the time of high tide. Some storm surge forecasts include: 5 to 8 feet in the hurricane warning area in the Bahamas and one to three feet along the Florida coast in the warning areas on Oct. 26.NOAA's GOES-13 satellite monitors weather over the eastern U.S. and the Atlantic Ocean. In a visible image taken from NOAA's GOES-13 satellite on Friday, Oct. 26 at 1415 UTC (10:15 a.m. EDT) Hurricane Sandy's huge cloud extent of up to 2,000 miles extended into the Atlantic, while its center was over the Bahamas. At the same time a long line of clouds associated with a powerful cold front approaching the U.S. east coast stretched from the upper Midwest to the Gulf coast. The image was created by the NASA GOES Project at NASA Goddard.Hurricane Sandy is expected to mix with a powerful cold front approaching the east coast, and cold Arctic Air mass, setting up for a powerful storm, a "Frankenstorm."The cold front stretching from the upper Midwest to the Gulf coast is moving eastward and is expected to temporarily push Sandy away from the coast. However, the front is expected to break down as it moves toward the coast, allowing Hurricane Sandy to come back toward the coast.As happens when any storm becomes extra-tropical, Sandy will go from a warm to cold core center and the strongest winds spread out and the storm will expand. According to the National Hurricane Center, hurricane force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 km) from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 275 miles (445 km). The wind field of Sandy is expected to grow in size during the next couple of days. The storm's circulation almost reaches 2,000 miles.Although landfall is expected in southeastern Delaware early Tuesday morning as a hurricane, the Mid-Atlantic is expected to start feeling the storm's effect starting Sunday, Oct. 28. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 25, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121025140814.htm | NASA sees power in Hurricane Sandy moving toward Bahamas | When NASA's Terra satellite flew over Hurricane Sandy around noon local time on Oct. 25, it captured a visible image of Hurricane Sandy that showed the large extent of the storm. Sandy has grown since the morning hours on Oct. 25 by about 120 miles in diameter according to satellite data. | NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard the Terra satellite captured this visible image of Hurricane Sandy over the Bahamas on Oct. 25 at 1530 UTC (11:30 a.m. EDT). The MODIS image revealed strong thunderstorms in its southern arm, positioned over the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and eastern Puerto Rico. The center of the storm was moving through the Bahamas, and the northwestern edge had already spread clouds over southern Florida.At 2 p.m. EDT on Oct. 25, Sandy's maximum sustained winds remain near 105 mph (165 kph). The storm is a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale. Sandy's center was located near 23 degrees 30 minutes north latitude and 75 degrees 24 minutes west longitude, just 25 miles (40 km) east of Great Exuma Island, Bahamas. Sandy is moving toward the north near 20 mph (32 kph) and this motion is expected to continue followed by a turn toward the north-northwest. Sandy is expected to remain a hurricane as it moves through the Bahamas.At 11 a.m. EDT, tropical-storm-force winds extended up to 140 miles (220 km) from the center, making Sandy more than 280 miles in diameter. By 2 p.m. EDT, just more than three hours later, Sandy had grown. Sandy's tropical storm-force-winds now extend outward up to 205 miles (335 km) from the center, making the storm about 410 miles in diameter.High pressure rotating clockwise over New England may be set up to push Sandy toward the mid-Atlantic as a cold front approaches from the west. Various computer models are showing different scenarios for Oct. 29's weather along the U.S. East Coast. The current forecast track from the National Hurricane Center brings Sandy in for a landfall in central New Jersey on Tuesday, Oct. 30. Regardless, it appears that Sandy may be a strong wind event for the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Northeast. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 18, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121018105737.htm | Could a hurricane ever strike Southern California? | There's an old adage (with several variations) that California has four seasons: earthquake, fire, flood and drought. While Californians happily cede the title of Hurricane Capital of America to U.S. East and Gulf coasters, every once in a while, Mother Nature sends a reminder to Southern Californians that they are not completely immune to the whims of tropical cyclones. Typically, this takes the form of rainfall from the remnants of a tropical cyclone in the eastern Pacific, as happened recently when the remnants of Hurricane John brought rain and thunderstorms to parts of Southern California. But could a hurricane ever make landfall in Southern California? | The answer, as it turns out, is yes, and no. While there has never been a documented case of a hurricane making landfall in California, the Golden State has had its share of run-ins and close calls with tropical cyclones. In fact, California has been affected by at least a few tropical cyclones in every decade since 1900. Over that timeframe, three of those storms brought gale-force winds to California: an unnamed California tropical storm in 1939, Kathleen in 1976 and Nora in 1997. But the primary threat from California tropical cyclones isn't winds or storm surge. It's rainfall -- sometimes torrential -- which has led to flooding, damage and, occasionally, casualties.At NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., JPL oceanographer and climatologist Bill Patzert was recently asked about the prospects for future tropical cyclones in Southern California.Patzert: The interesting thing is that it really can't happen, statistically speaking. The odds are infinitesimal -- so small that everyone should just relax. Like 1 in 1,000. Of course, there's always a chance. But there's a good reason why we don't name our West Coast sports teams the Hurricanes, but we do have the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes.Seriously, as eastern Pacific hurricanes move northwest and weaken, what we have had are many instances where they dumped a lot of rainfall in Southern California. That's what happened with two monster storms in 1858 and 1939, both El Nino years. And there have been plenty of other examples. When Southern California does get affected by tropical systems, September is by far the most common month.Patzert: There are two main factors that work against hurricanes here: cool waters off the coast and the direction of the upper-level winds.Tropical cyclones draw their fuel, so to speak, from heat stored in the upper ocean. Typically, ocean surface waters greater than 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius) are required to form and fuel these great storms. During the Northern Hemisphere summer and fall, the upper layers of the tropical oceans (down to approximately 330 feet depth) are steadily heated. By September, when hurricane season hits its peak, these waters reach their maximum temperatures, becoming, in a sense, high-octane fuel for hurricanes. But water temperatures never get that high in the coastal waters north of central Baja California. On rare occasions, they may reach about 75 degrees Fahrenheit (24 degrees Celsius) near the shore in Southern California, typically during an El Nino episode. But generally speaking, low 60s is about as warm as they get farther from shore and elsewhere in coastal California.In the Pacific Ocean, the North Pacific Current flows from Japan eastward across the Pacific and then splits into the northern-flowing Alaska Current and the southern-flowing California Current. The cool-water California Current, which sweeps down the West Coast of the United States, really acts as hurricane repellant, protecting California and even Northern Baja California from hurricanes.The other factor at play here is the upper-level winds, which tend to carry and steer storms to the west and northwest, away from California, and also tend to shear the tops off of hurricanes, breaking them apart. Between the upper and lower-level winds, there's a lot of wind shear off the coast here in Southern California. These prevailing northwesterly winds also push warmer surface waters offshore, drawing cooler waters up to the surface, and this further adds to the cool nature of the nearby ocean waters that would weaken any storms that did approach California.Patzert: The best odds for a tropical cyclone to affect Southern California are during a "Godzilla" El Nino event, when the waters off the coast are warmest, like we had in 1997-98 when waters were in the low to mid 70s. Or when we're in the positive phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), a long-term pattern of change in the Pacific Ocean that alternates between cool and warm periods about every five to 20 years. We're currently in the early stages of a cool phase of the PDO, which tends to dampen the effects of El Ninos. Waters in the eastern Pacific generate more hurricanes during El Nino years.In addition, the upper-level winds would have to steer an unusually strong storm our way. That almost happened with Hurricane Linda in 1997, which briefly threatened Southern California before turning away to sea. But even if Linda had made landfall in California, it wouldn't have been a big wind event. It would have been more like an "atmospheric river" event, common in wintertime, with heavy rainfall and flooding. And storm surge, which is a big concern along the U.S. Gulf and East coasts, is really a negligible issue along most of the California coast, because much of it sits atop bluffs, above sea level.Patzert: This hurricane season has been moderately active in the eastern Pacific and slightly busier than normal in the Atlantic, but there have been very few big storms. And locally, our current water temperatures off the Southern California coast are between 65 and 70 degrees Fahrenheit [18 and 21 degrees Celsius]. That's way too cold for hurricanes.Patzert: Nobody knows yet, and if anybody tells you they know the answer to that question, kick 'em out of your Rolodex file. In fact it's possible that there might be fewer hurricanes in a warming world. But the bottom line for Southern Californians is that even if global temperatures were to rise six degrees, a hurricane in California would rank very low on the list of things we'd need to worry about.Patzert: Anytime you get too much rain too quick, it can cause damage and death, as we saw in the winter of 1938-39. But remember that was before we had a reliable observation network, based on ground and copious satellite measurements, which provided for useful forecasts and warnings. In addition, Southern Californians are flood resistant now because of those storms in 1938-39, which led to all the major rivers here being concreted. So we're largely immunized against these kinds of catastrophic flooding events now.Patzert: In the Southeastern United States, an awful lot of the annual water budget comes from tropical storms, which can have a positive impact as drought busters. But tropical cyclones are not a significant contributor to our rainfall here in Southern California. The average rainfall in Los Angeles in September, even with rainfall from occasional tropical cyclones, is less than half an inch. These amounts are small compared to our normal winter total of 15.1 inches (31 centimeters). But we would certainly welcome any rainfall we can get in September and October, because it can help trump the effects of the hot, dry Santa Ana winds and their associated fire threat. And those are far more real threats to Californians than hurricanes will ever be.For more information, including a brief overview of a few of the more notable tropical cyclones to have affected Southern California in recorded history, see the original story at: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 15, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121015152003.htm | Tropical cyclones are occurring more frequently than before, study shows | Are there more tropical cyclones now than in the past -- or is it just something we believe because we now hear more about them through media coverage and are better able detect them with satellites? New research from the Niels Bohr Institute clearly shows that there is an increasing tendency for cyclones when the climate is warmer, as it has been in recent years. | The results are published in the How can you examine the frequency of tropical cyclones throughout history when they have not been systematically registered? Today cyclones are monitored from satellites and you can follow their progress and direction very accurately. But it is only the last approx. 40 years that we have been able to do this. Previously, they used observations from ships and aircraft, but these were not systematic measurements. In order to get a long-term view of the frequency of cyclones, it is necessary to go further back in time and use a uniform reference. Climate scientist Aslak Grinsted of the Centre for Ice and Climate at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen therefore wanted to find some instruments that have stood and registered measurements continuously over a long period of time."Tropical cyclones typically form out in the Atlantic Ocean and move towards the U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. I found that there were monitoring stations along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States where they had recorded the daily tide levels all the way back to 1923. I have looked at every time there was a rapid change in sea level and I could see that there was a close correlation between sudden changes in sea level and historical accounts of tropical storms," explains Aslak Grinsted.Aslak Grinsted now had a tool to create statistics on the frequency of cyclones that make landfall -- all the way back to 1923. He could see that there has been an increasing trend in the number of major storm surges since 1923.Together with colleagues in China and England, he then looked at the global temperatures over the period to see whether there was a trend for a higher frequency of cyclones in a warmer climate. The global temperature has increased 0.7 degrees C since 1923, but there are variations. For example, there was a warm period in the 1940s but the temperature has really risen since 1980."We simply counted how many extreme cyclones with storm surges there were in warm years compared to cold years and we could see that there was a tendency for more cyclones in warmer years," says Aslak Grinsted.But not all cyclones are equally harmful and those with the highest storm surges tend to cause the most damage. Cyclones with a strength like Katrina, which hit the New Orleans area in 2005 and caused devastating floods and thousands of deaths, make landfall every 10-30 years on average."We have calculated that extreme hurricane surges like Katrina are twice as likely in warm years than in cold years. So when the global climate becomes 3 degrees warmer in the future, as predictions show, what happens then?," reflects Aslak Grinsted. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
October 8, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121008201204.htm | NASA's HS3 mission thoroughly investigates long-lived Hurricane Nadine | NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel or HS3 scientists had a fascinating tropical cyclone to study in long-lived Hurricane Nadine. NASA's Global Hawk aircraft has investigated Nadine five times during the storm's lifetime. | NASA's Global Hawk also circled around the eastern side of Hurricane Leslie when it initially flew from NASA's Dryden Research Flight Center, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. to the HS3 base at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va. on Sept. 6-7, 2012.Nadine has been a great tropical cyclone to study because it has lived so long and has strengthened to hurricane status a couple of times, and then weakened back into a tropical storm. Hurricane Nadine is an anomaly because it has been tracking through the North Atlantic since Sept. 11, when it developed as the fourteenth tropical system of the hurricane season.As of Oct. 2, Nadine has been alive in the north Atlantic for 21 days. According to NOAA, in the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Ginger lasted 28 days in 1971. The Pacific Ocean holds the record, though as Hurricane/Typhoon John lasted 31 days. John was "born" in the Eastern North Pacific, crossed the International Dateline and moved through the Western North Pacific over 31 days during August and September 1994. Nadine, however, is in the top 50 longest-lasting tropical cyclones in either ocean basin.On Sept. 11, as part of NASA's HS3 mission, the Global Hawk aircraft took off from NASA Wallops at 7:06 a.m. EDT and headed for Tropical Depression 14, which at the time of take-off, was still a developing low pressure area called System 91L.At 11 a.m. EDT that day, Tropical Depression 14 was located near 16.3 North latitude and 43.1 West longitude, about 1,210 miles (1,950 km) east of the Lesser Antilles. The depression had maximum sustained winds near 35 mph. It was moving to the west near 10 mph (17 kmh) and had a minimum central pressure of 1006 millibars.NASA's Global Hawk landed back at Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., on Sept. 12 after spending 11 hours gathering data in the storm, which had strengthened into Tropical Storm Nadine during the early morning hours of Sept. 12.The Global Hawk, one of two associated with the HS3 mission, sought to determine whether hot, dry and dusty air associated with the Saharan air layer was being ingested into the storm. This Saharan air typically crosses westward over the Atlantic Ocean and potentially affects tropical cyclone formation and intensification. During its 26-hour flight around Nadine, the Global Hawk covered more than one million square kilometers (386,100 square miles) going back and forth over the storm in what's called a "lawnmower pattern." The Global Hawk captured data using instruments aboard the aircraft and also dropped sensors called sondes into the storm. These sondes are small sensors tied to parachutes that drift down through the storm measuring winds, temperature and humidity.The Global Hawk investigated Tropical Storm Nadine again on Sept. 14 and 15. During its 22.5 hour flight around Nadine, the Global Hawk covered more than one million square kilometers (386,100 square miles) going again went back and forth over the storm in another lawnmower pattern."During the flight, Nadine strengthened from a tropical storm to a hurricane despite being hit by very strong westerly winds at upper levels and very dry air on its periphery," said Scott Braun, HS3 Mission principal investigator from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. Data from this flight will help scientists determine how a storm like Nadine can intensify even in the presence of seemingly adverse conditions.NASA's Global Hawk unmanned aircraft departed from NASA Wallops at 2:42 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, Sept. 19 and crossed the Atlantic to take additional measurements in Tropical Storm Nadine. Both the Global Hawk and NASA's TRMM satellite noticed that Nadine had continued to display tropical characteristics, indicating that it had not transitioned to an extra-tropical storm. An extra-tropical storm is one that loses its tropical characteristics, such as when the core of the storm changes from a warm core to a cold core, like a typical mid-latitude low pressure system that is associated with fronts. At that time, Nadine was located in the Atlantic a few hundred miles southwest of the Azores Island.The science portion of the third flight was completed on Sept. 20. Scientists reported that they obtained excellent data from the dropsonde system, which showed some winds on the western side of the storm still reaching 60 knots (69 mph/111 kmh) at middle levels and possibly one measurement of near 60 knots (69 mph/111 kmh) near the surface. The data suggested that Nadine was still a tropical system rather than an extra-tropical system.The three science instruments aboard the Global Hawk performed extremely well, transmitting data back to NASA Wallops for the scientists to analyze and discuss. The plane observed Nadine for more than 12 hours. Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center were using the data supplied by NASA's Global Hawk and noted in the discussion of Nadine at 11 a.m. EDT on Sept. 20, "The current intensity is kept at 45 knots (51.7 mph/83.3 kmh)…is in good agreement with dropsonde data from the NASA Global Hawk aircraft and AMSU [instrument] estimates."The fourth science flight of NASA's Global Hawk over Nadine concluded when the aircraft landed at NASA Wallops on Sunday, Sept. 23. The HS3 mission scientists changed the flight path during the Global Hawk flight to be able to overfly Nadine's center that day."Measurements from dropsondes found wind speeds greater than 60 knots (69 mph/111 kph) at lower levels above the surface during that adjusted flight leg," said Scott Braun. "Despite the large distance of Nadine from the U. S. East Coast, the Global Hawk was able to spend about 11 hours over the storm."The Global Hawk aircraft's fifth investigation of Nadine occurred on Sept. 26 with the aircraft returning to NASA Wallops the next day. While over Tropical Storm Nadine, the storm had maximum sustained winds near 60 mph (95 kmh). Despite adverse conditions, the storm re-intensified to a hurricane the next day, so the HS3 data captured the precursor conditions for intensification.The HS3 mission targets the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change. The data collected will help scientists decipher the relative roles of the large-scale environment and internal storm processes that shape these systems.HS3 is supported by several NASA centers including Wallops; Goddard; Dryden; Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.; Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.; and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. HS3 also has collaborations with partners from government agencies and academia.HS3 is an Earth Venture mission funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Earth Venture missions are managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The HS3 mission is managed by the Earth Science Project Office at NASA Ames. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
September 26, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120926141701.htm | Hurricane Irene polluted Catskills watershed | The water quality of lakes and coastal systems will be altered if hurricanes intensify in a warming world, according to a Yale study in Geophysical Research Letters. | Bryan Yoon, the study's co-author and a doctoral student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, found that last summer during Hurricane Irene -- the worst storm in the New York area in 200 years -- record amounts of dissolved organic matter darkened Catskill waters and affected the Ashokan Reservoir that supplies New York City with drinking water."This is the biggest rain event ever sampled for the region," said Yoon, who conducted the study with Pete Raymond, professor of ecosystem ecology at Yale.As a primary source of drinking water for New York City, the Catskill Mountains is designated as forest preserve, and roughly 62 percent of the watershed studied is protected by New York State. Over a two-day period in late August 2011, Irene dropped over 11 inches of rain -- 17 percent of the average annual rainfall -- on Esopus Creek that feeds the Ashokan.Yoon found that the volume of water discharged by the creek increased 330-fold, and the creek exported an unprecedented amount of dissolved organic matter to the Ashokan, equivalent to 43 percent of its average annual export. Yoon likened the increase in dissolved organic matter to a person being fed 40 percent of his annual food in a few days.Although not discussed as often as other water quality topics such as turbidity, dissolved organic matter plays a critical role in the aquatic environment and for the provision of clean drinking water. In moderate quantities, dissolved organic matter also provides food and nutrients for microbial communities.In excessive amounts, however, dissolved organic matter could lead to numerous environmental problems, Yoon's study found. Dissolved organic matter binds with metal pollutants and transports them; interferes with ultraviolet processes that reduce pathogens in water; affects aquatic metabolism; and leads to the formation of carcinogenic disinfection byproducts, such as trihalomethanes during chlorination."All of those problems become more serious as larger quantities of dissolved organic matter are transported to lakes and coastal systems," he said. "Hurricane Irene was a prime example that there is no limit to the amount of dissolved organic matter that can be exported by extreme rain events. Surprisingly, concentrations of dissolved organic matter didn't get diluted."Raymond said that frequent hurricanes will flush more organic matter out of the ground and into lakes, reservoirs and coastal waters, potentially altering their biogeochemical cycles. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
September 25, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120925171712.htm | Cutting-edge technology makes NASA's hurricane mission a reality | Cutting-edge NASA technology has made this year's NASA Hurricane mission a reality. NASA and other scientists are currently flying a suite of state-of-the-art, autonomously operated instruments that are gathering difficult-to-obtain measurements of wind speeds, precipitation, and cloud structures in and around tropical storms. | "Making these measurements possible is the platform on which the instruments are flying," said Paul Newman, the deputy principal investigator of NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3), managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. HS3 will use NASA's unmanned Global Hawks, which are capable of flying at altitudes greater than 60,000 feet with flight durations of up to 28 hours -- capabilities that increase the amount of data scientists can collect. "It's a brand-new way to do science," Newman said.The month-long HS3 mission, which began in early September, is actually a more robust follow-on to NASA's Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment that scientists executed in 2010. Often referred to as "GRIP on steroids," HS3 is currently deploying one instrument-laden Global Hawk from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore to look at the environment of tropical storms. In 2013 and 2014, a second Global Hawk will be added that will focus on getting detailed measurements of the inner core of hurricanes.Without this new aircraft, developed originally for the U.S. Air Force to gather intelligence and surveillance data, the team says the mission wouldn't be possible.The Global Hawk's ability to fly for a much longer period of time than manned aircraft will allow it to obtain previously difficult-to-get data. Scientists hope to use that data to gain new insights into how tropical storms form, and more importantly, how they intensify into major Atlantic hurricanes -- information that forecasters need to make better storm predictions, save lives, and ultimately prevent costly coastal evacuations if a storm doesn't warrant them."Because you can get to Africa from Wallops, we'll be able to study developing systems way out into the Atlantic," Newman explained. "Normal planes, which can fly for no more than about 10 hours, often miss the points where storms intensify," added Gerry Heymsfield, a Goddard scientist who used NASA Research and Development funding to create one of the mission's six instruments, the High-altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP). "With the Global Hawks, we have a much higher chance of capturing these events. Furthermore, we can sit on targets for a long time."Just as important as the aircraft are the new or enhanced instruments designed to gather critical wind, temperature, humidity, and aerosol measurements in the environment surrounding the storm and the rain and wind patterns occurring inside their inner cores, they added. "The instruments bring it all together," Newman said. "We didn't have these instruments 10 years ago."The Global Hawk currently on deployment at Wallops is known as the "environmental" aircraft because it samples the environment in which hurricanes are embedded. It carries three instruments.A Goddard-provided laser system called the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) is located in the nose. CPL measures cloud structures and aerosols, such as dust, sea salt particles, and smoke particles, by bouncing laser light off these elements. An infrared instrument called the Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS), provided by the University of Wisconsin in Madison, sits in the belly of the aircraft. It measures the vertical profile of temperature and water vapor.At the tail end is a dropsonde system provided by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This system consists of 88 paper-towel-roll-sized tubes that are ejected much like a soda can in a vending machine. As the sensor drops, a parachute slows its descent, allowing the sensor to drift down through the storm while measuring winds, temperature, pressure, and humidity.In 2013 and 2014, working in tandem with its environmental counterpart, will be a second Global Hawk, known as the "over-storm" aircraft. It will sample the internal structure of hurricanes. It, too, will carry three instruments.Heymsfield's HIWRAP, for example, will be situated in the belly of the Global Hawk and will be responsible for sampling the cores of hurricanes. Similar to a ground radar system, but pointed downward, HIWRAP measures rain structure and winds, providing a three-dimensional view of these conditions.Also onboard this craft will be a microwave system called the High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), created by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Located in the aircraft's nose, this instrument uses microwave wavelengths to measure temperature, water vapor, and precipitation from the top of the storm to the surface.At the other end of the aircraft in the tail section will be the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) provided by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. This microwave instrument measures surface wind speeds and rain rates in an unusual way. It collects this data by measuring the amount of "foaminess" in ocean waters. According to Newman, the amount of foaminess is proportional to wind speeds at the surface.Although all six instruments measure different conditions, they share one important characteristic: all operate autonomously and deliver data to scientists in real-time -- another scientific advance. In the past, aircraft instruments, which often required the presence of a scientist to operate them, would record captured data. Only after the aircraft landed could scientists begin evaluating what they had collected.With the Global Hawk, however, the data are transmitted to the ground in real-time. Should conditions warrant, the science team can direct the pilot, who flies the aircraft from a computer console on the ground, to change course or tweak the pre-programmed flight path in some way to maximize or improve the data they are gathering. "With the Global Hawk and these instruments, we can make better decisions," Heymsfield added.The five-year mission will continue through 2014, at which time the team hopes to have dramatically improved their understanding of how storms intensify. "The insights we get will benefit forecasters," Newman said. "What we hope to do is take this technique and make it part of the operational forecast infrastructure."The HS3 mission is supported by several NASA facilities including Wallops, Goddard, NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.; Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.; and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. In addition, the mission also involves collaborations with various partners from government agencies and academia.HS3 is an Earth Venture mission funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Earth Venture missions are managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va. The HS3 Project itself is managed by the Earth Science Project Office at NASA's Ames Research Center.For more information about the NASA GRIP mission, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
September 20, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120920135220.htm | Civil engineers destroy test levee in the Netherlands | Civil engineers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute were part of an international research team that collapsed a full-scale dike this week in the Netherlands. The test dike was embedded with advanced sensors and traditional measurement instruments, and results of the study are expected to help validate powerful new technologies for monitoring the health of aging flood-control infrastructure. | The dike was situated in a specially constructed basin, which the researchers filled with water. The slow addition of water into the basin increased the pressure on the dike. Water forced its way into the dike, and eventually softened the bottom of the dike and shifted the earth underneath, prompting the overall structure to collapse. The study was led by Dutch research institute Deltares, in partnership with Rensselaer and 14 other companies and universities from around the world. It was the research team's third full-scale levee test collapse this summer. The full results of the tests will be presented at the Flood Risk Conference in November 2012 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands."The failure of flood-control infrastructure is very real, and can lead to catastrophic flooding as we unfortunately witnessed in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina," said Tarek Abdoun, associate dean for research and graduate programs in the School of Engineering and the Judith and Thomas Iovino '73 Career Development Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Rensselaer. "A large-scale test like this can help supply us with invaluable data to inform and validate our efforts to create a long-term, real-time monitoring system that can assess the health of levees and help identify the vulnerability of levee or dam sections before they fail."Rensselaer Research Assistant Professor Victoria Gene Bennett and Associate Professor Mourad Zeghal are collaborating on the project with Abdoun. Their participation in the Deltares project was funded as part of a three-year grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate. Abdoun, Bennett, and Zeghal are faculty members of the Rensselaer Center for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (CEES), which is a part of the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Program of the National Science Foundation.The collapsed dike was fit with a large number of different sensors, including SAPP (shape-acceleration-pore pressure) arrays that were developed through a partnership between Rensselaer and industrial collaborator Measurand. SAPP sensor arrays are designed to be installed into the ground, beneath and around levees and dams. The cost-effective arrays accurately measure soil deformation, vibration, and pore pressure at critical points of a flood-control system.These SAPP arrays are a critical part of an ongoing Rensselaer-led research project to create an integrated suite of technologies and methods for ensuring the reliability and safety of flood-control infrastructure. The project, funded by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's Technology Innovation Program, pairs SAPP measurements with GPS and InSAR, or satellite-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar measurements. Accurate down to the millimeter, InSAR captures and analyzes high-resolution satellite images of levees and dams, and measures how far these structures have shifted or sunk due to environmental changes such as rain, floods, tremors, or even aging. To bridge the gap between InSAR satellite data and below-ground SAPP measurements, the researchers will augment the framework with a network of high-resolution GPS sensors to track the physical movement of structures and the ground surface."Through our joint venture partnership with Geocomp Corp., a dense grid of instruments including SAPPs, GPS, and radar reflectors has been installed at the London Ave. Canal in New Orleans. The real-time data collected from this site, and others in the New Orleans area, will make performance information available during this and upcoming hurricane seasons, in addition to providing calibration data for health assessment algorithms," Bennett said. Led by Zeghal, this project is a collaboration with Bennett, Abdoun, and Birsen Yazici, professor in the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer.Data collected from the SAPP, InSAR, and GPS systems are integrated into an automated "smart network" that provides a long-term continuous assessment of the health of levee systems from both underground and aerial perspectives. In the case of a levee failure, data collected by the automated monitoring system will be used to organize a quick emergency response to repair levees and minimize the extent of flooding. Collected data is also being paired with computational simulation techniques to build accurate, predictive models of how different levees will react to different environmental conditions. These models help inform plans to mitigate levee damage and respond to disasters, and provide quantitative assessments that will better allow federal and local governments to prioritize where infrastructure repairs are most needed.In the United States, the national flood-control infrastructure is aging and its structural health is deteriorating, Abdoun said. The system is composed of more than 5,600 km of levees, and 43 percent of the U.S. population lives in counties with levees designed to provide some level of protection from flooding. Some of these levees are as old as 150 years. In 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers Report Card for America's Infrastructure gave the condition of the nation's dams a grade of D, and levees a grade of D-minus. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
September 11, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120911193518.htm | NASA's Global Hawk investigating atlantic Tropical Depression 14 | NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission sent an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft this morning to study newborn Tropical Depression 14 in the central Atlantic Ocean that seems primed for further development. The Global Hawk left NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., this morning for a planned 26-hour flight to investigate the depression. | NASA's latest hurricane science field campaign began on Sept. 7 when the Global Hawk flew over Hurricane Leslie in the Atlantic Ocean. HS3 marks the first time NASA is flying Global Hawks from the U.S. East Coast.According to Chris Naftel, project manager of NASA's Global Hawk program at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Base, Calif., the Global Hawk aircraft took off at 7:06 a.m. EDT and headed for Tropical Depression 14, which at the time of take-off, was still a developing low pressure area called System 91L.At 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT), Tropical Depression 14 was located near 16.3 North latitude and 43.1 West longitude, about 1,210 miles (1,950 km) east of the Lesser Antilles. The depression had maximum sustained winds near 35 mph. It was moving to the west near 10 mph (17 kmh) and had a minimum central pressure of 1006 millibars.The National Hurricane Center expects Tropical Depression 14 to strengthen into a tropical storm over the next 48 hours, and turn to the northwest.On Sept. 10, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed over Tropical Depression 14, when it was known as low pressure System 91L and data from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) were used to create a rainfall analysis. The data was overlaid on a combination infrared and visible image from TRMM's Visible and InfraRed Scanner (VIRS) and showed that System 91L was getting organized and that convective storms reaching heights of about 13km (~8.1 miles) were dropping heavy rain to the northwest and northeast of the center of the circulation.The HS3 mission targets the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change. The data collected will help scientists decipher the relative roles of the large-scale environment and internal storm processes that shape these systems.HS3 is supported by several NASA centers including Wallops; Goddard; Dryden; Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.; Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.; and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. HS3 also has collaborations with partners from government agencies and academia.HS3 is an Earth Venture mission funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Earth Venture missions are managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The HS3 mission is managed by the Earth Science Project Office at NASA's Ames Research Center. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
September 11, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120911103409.htm | More accurate method for predicting hurricane activity | Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new method for forecasting seasonal hurricane activity that is 15 percent more accurate than previous techniques. | "This approach should give policymakers more reliable information than current state-of-the-art methods," says Dr. Nagiza Samatova, an associate professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work. "This will hopefully give them more confidence in planning for the hurricane season."Conventional models used to predict seasonal hurricane activity rely on classical statistical methods using historical data. Hurricane predictions are challenging, in part, because there are an enormous number of variables in play -- such as temperature and humidity -- which need to be entered for different places and different times. This means there are hundreds of thousands of factors to be considered.The trick is in determining which variables at which times in which places are most significant. This challenge is exacerbated by the fact that we only have approximately 60 years of historical data to plug into the models.But now researchers have developed a "network motif-based model" that evaluates historical data for all of the variables in all of the places at all of the times in order to identify those combinations of factors that are most predictive of seasonal hurricane activity. For example, some combinations of factors may correlate only to low activity, while other may correlate only to high activity.The groups of important factors identified by the network motif-based model are then plugged into a program to create an ensemble of statistical models that present the hurricane activity for the forthcoming season on a probability scale. For example, it might say there is an 80 percent probability of high activity, a 15 percent probability of normal activity and a 5 percent probability of low activity.Definitions of these activity levels vary from region to region. In the North Atlantic, which covers the east coast of the United States, high activity is defined as eight or more hurricanes during hurricane season, while normal activity is defined as five to seven hurricanes, and low activity is four or fewer.Using cross validation -- plugging in partial historical data and comparing the new method's results to subsequent historical events -- the researchers found the new method has an 80 percent accuracy rate of predicting the level of hurricane activity. This compares to a 65 percent accuracy rate for traditional predictive methods.In addition, using the network model, researchers have not only confirmed previously identified predictive groups of factors, but identified a number of new predictive groups.The researchers plan to use the newly identified groups of relevant factors to advance our understanding of the mechanisms that influence hurricane variability and behavior. This could ultimately improve our ability to predict the track of hurricanes, their severity and how global climate change may affect hurricane activity well into the future.The paper, "Discovery of extreme events-related communities in contrasting groups of physical system networks," was published online Sept. 4 in the journal | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
September 7, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120907144921.htm | NASA's Global Hawk mission begins with flight to Hurricane Leslie | NASA has begun its latest hurricane science field campaign by flying an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft over Hurricane Leslie in the Atlantic Ocean during a day-long flight from California to Virginia. With the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission, NASA for the first time will be flying Global Hawks from the U.S. East Coast. | The Global Hawk took off from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Thursday and landed at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., today at 11:37 a.m. EDT after spending 10 hours collecting data on Hurricane Leslie. The month-long HS3 mission will help researchers and forecasters uncover information about how hurricanes and tropical storms form and intensify.NASA will fly two Global Hawks from Wallops during the HS3 mission. The planes, which can stay in the air for as long as 28 hours and fly over hurricanes at altitudes greater than 60,000 feet, will be operated by pilots in ground control stations at Wallops and Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.The mission targets the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change. The aircraft help scientists decipher the relative roles of the large-scale environment and internal storm processes that shape these systems. Studying hurricanes is a challenge for a field campaign like HS3 because of the small sample of storms available for study and the great variety of scenarios under which they form and evolve. HS3 flights will continue into early October of this year and be repeated from Wallops during the 2013 and 2014 hurricane seasons.The first Global Hawk arrived Sept. 7 at Wallops carrying a payload of three instruments that will sample the environment around hurricanes. A second Global Hawk, scheduled to arrive in two weeks, will look inside hurricanes and developing storms with a different set of instruments. The pair will measure winds, temperature, water vapor, precipitation and aerosols from the surface to the lower stratosphere."The primary objective of the environmental Global Hawk is to describe the interaction of tropical disturbances and cyclones with the hot, dry and dusty air that moves westward off the Saharan desert and appears to affect the ability of storms to form and intensify," said Scott Braun, HS3 mission principal investigator and research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.This Global Hawk will carry a laser system called the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL), the Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS), and the Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS).The CPL will measure cloud structure and aerosols such as dust, sea salt and smoke particles. The S-HIS can remotely sense the temperature and water vapor vertical profile along with the sea surface temperature and cloud properties. The AVAPS dropsonde system will eject small sensors tied to parachutes that drift down through the storm, measuring winds, temperature and humidity."Instruments on the 'over-storm' Global Hawk will examine the role of deep thunderstorm systems in hurricane intensity change, particularly to detect changes in low-level wind fields in the vicinity of these thunderstorms," said Braun.These instruments will measure eyewall and rainband winds and precipitation using a Doppler radar and other microwave sensors called the High-altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP), High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) and Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD).HIWRAP measures cloud structure and winds, providing a three-dimensional view of these conditions. HAMSR uses microwave wavelengths to measure temperature, water vapor, and precipitation from the top of the storm to the surface. HIRAD measures surface wind speeds and rain rates.The HS3 mission is supported by several NASA centers including Wallops; Goddard; Dryden; Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.; Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.; and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. HS3 also has collaborations with partners from government agencies and academia.HS3 is an Earth Venture mission funded by NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Earth Venture missions are managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at the agency's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The HS3 mission is managed by the Earth Science Project Office at NASA's Ames Research Center.For more information about NASA's Airborne Science Program, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 30, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120830074631.htm | A slow-moving Isaac brings flooding to Gulf states | Isaac -- once a Category 1 hurricane and now a strong tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 70 miles per hour (60 knots) -- continues to create havoc across the Gulf Coast, from eastern Texas to Florida. While "only" reaching Category 1 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale upon landfall on Aug. 28, Isaac is a slow mover, crawling along at only about six miles (10 kilometers) per hour. This slow movement is forecast to continue over the next 24 to 36 hours, bringing a prolonged threat of flooding to the northern Gulf Coast and south-central United States. | As seen in this infrared image from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft, acquired at 2:41 p.m. CDT on Aug. 29, 2012, the large storm is still relatively well organized and is producing strong bands of thunderstorms. The broad area of purple in the image represents cloud-top temperatures colder than minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 52 degrees Celsius) around the center of the storm's circulation. It is here that Isaac's strongest storms and heaviest rainfall are now occurring.According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Hurricane Center, strong bands of thunderstorms continue to develop over water in the storm's eastern semicircle and southwest of the center. These strong rain bands are forecast to spread gradually to the west tonight across coastal southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi, including the New Orleans metropolitan area. The storm is expected to weaken to a tropical depression by Thursday night and a post-tropical remnant low-pressure system by Friday.For more on NASA's Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 29, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120829192423.htm | Mississippi River flows backwards due to Isaac | Strong winds and storm surge from Hurricane Isaac's landfall forced the Mississippi River to flow backwards for nearly 24 hours on Tuesday, August 28. The USGS streamgage at Belle Chasse, Louisiana, showed the Mississippi River flowing upstream at 182,000 cubic feet per second, surging to 10 feet above than its previous height. Average flow for the Mississippi River at Belle Chase is about 125,000 cfs towards the Gulf of Mexico. | Although it doesn't happen often, hurricanes can cause coastal rivers to reverse flow. Between the extremely strong winds and the massive waves of water pushed by those winds, rivers at regular or low flow are forced backwards until either the normal river-flow or the elevation of the land stop the inflow.As Hurricane Isaac pushes further inland, it is causing storm surge in the Mississippi River as far north as Baton Rouge, where the river has crested at 8 feet above its prior height."This reversal of flow of the mighty Mississippi is but one measure of the extreme force of Isaac," said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. "While such events are ephemeral, they are yet another reminder of why we need to respect hurricane warnings."When Hurricane Katrina came ashore in 2005, the Mississippi River also reversed flow, cresting at 13 feet above its previous level, with Baton Rouge reaching 9 feet above its previous stage as well.Another phenomenon that USGS streamgages have recorded as Hurricane Isaac moves inland is that periodically, coastal rivers in Louisiana have lost height, only to gain it back again soon after. This rising and falling of the rivers is a common occurrence during hurricanes and is caused by the spiral nature of these storms.As the winds sweep to the southwest, they force water out of the rivers, lowering their height. However, once the winds complete their turn to the southwest, they begin back to the northeast, allowing the storm surge to raise the river levels.These oddities in river behavior are recorded in real-time by USGS' extensive network of streamgages, located through Louisiana and the rest of the country. These streamgages, which are installed along rivers and streams, record data like streamflow, river height, and, in some cases, even water chemistry.Many transmit their data in real-time to satellites, updating with new information every 15 minutes. This wealth of data allows USGS scientists, emergency managers and responders, and even the general public to have accurate and up-to-date knowledge of what the rivers and streams in their areas are doing. This data is particularly critical during massive flooding events like Hurricane Isaac.In fact, anyone can sign up to receive notices from USGS streamgages when waters are rising in nearby rivers and streams through a program called WaterAlert (All USGS streamgage information is housed online (For the latest forecasts on the storm, listen to NOAA radio. For information on preparing for the storm, visit | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 29, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120829172111.htm | NASA sees Hurricane Isaac make double landfall in Louisiana | Hurricane Isaac is continuing to drop heavy rainfall over Louisiana and Mississippi, and NASA's TRMM satellite identified that rainfall as the storm was making landfall. | On Aug. 29, 2012 at 1 p.m. EDT, Isaac was still a hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 75 mph (120 kmh). Isaac was located about 10 miles northwest (15 km) of Houma, Louisiana and moving slowly. It is moving to the northwest near 6 mph (9 km). Isaac continued bringing heavy rainfall to southeastern Louisiana and southern Mississippi. The threat for dangerous coastal storm surge and inland flooding are expected to continue overnight.The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite flew over Hurricane Isaac twice on the night that Isaac made landfall in Louisiana and headed for New Orleans. TRMM is a joint mission managed by both NASA and JAXA, the Japanese Space Agency.In the first of the two overflights, the TRMM radar saw two hot towers in the eyewall of Hurricane Isaac just hours before landfall. While hot towers were shooting up in the eyewall over the ocean, Isaac's inner rainband was already lashing Louisiana with heavy rain. Hot towers are common in intensifying tropical cyclones are are a sign that energy is being pumped into the hurricane from the ocean's surface. A "hot tower" is a tall cumulonimbus cloud that reaches at least to the top of the troposphere, the lowest layer of the atmosphere. It extends approximately nine miles (14.5 km) high in the tropics.Two images were created by Owen Kelley, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The background of the first image showed TRMM infrared observations that give a sense of the height of the cloud cover the hides the heavy precipitation inside of of the hurricane. The blue-gray 3D volume contains the light precipitation inside the hurricane, using a 20 dBZ radar-reflectivity threshold.In the image, an insert reveals details at the center of the hurricane. Two hot towers are indicated by the yellow and orange colors. They are locations where strong updrafts are lifting frozen precipitation above a 14.5 km (9.1 mile) threshold. Water that condenses in updrafts will soon freeze if updrafts lift it above the zero-degree isotherm near 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) altitude. The freezing releases another boost of latent heat, the fuel of hurricanes, following the initial release of latent heat when the water vapor condenses into liquid.The TRMM radar happened to overfly Hurricane Isaac again just five hours later, shortly after the eyewall made landfall. Robbed of its oceanic source of energy, the eyewall hot towers are gone in this later overflight. Instead of reaching 14.5 km (9.1 mile) altitude, the eyewall merely reaches a 10 km (6.2 mile) altitude, which is indicated by the light green shading at the top of the blue-green volume of light precipitation.Unfortunately for New Orleans and surrounding areas, TRMM sees that Hurricane Isaac's eyewall was remarkably well organized at that time, despite having made landfall. The insert shows a ring of very intense radar echos in red, echos that exceed 40 dBZ radar reflectivity. The northwest quadrant of his ring of heavy precipitation is almost on top of New Orleans at the time of observation. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 29, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120829111641.htm | Cooler waters help diminish Isaac's punch | Seven years after the powerful Category 3 Hurricane Katrina caused widespread devastation along the Gulf Coast, a Category 1 Hurricane Isaac, with maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour (70 knots), made landfall Aug. 28 in southeast Louisiana. And one of the reasons why Isaac is not Katrina is the path it took across the Gulf of Mexico and the temperature of the ocean below, which helps to fuel hurricanes. | In 2005, Hurricane Katrina's maximum wind speeds increased dramatically as the storm passed over a warm ocean circulation feature called the Loop Current that is part of the Gulf Stream. The storm evolved quickly from a Category 3 to a Category 5 event on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale in a matter of nine hours as it drew heat from the Loop Current. It subsequently dropped in intensity to a Category 3 storm at landfall.Because the Loop Current and its eddies are warmer, and thus higher in surface elevation, than the surrounding waters, they are easily spotted by satellite altimeter instruments, such as those aboard the NASA/French Space Agency Jason 1 and Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 satellites. Scientists use the latest satellite measurements of sea-surface height from these and other satellite altimeters to create maps showing the location, direction and speed of currents in the Gulf of Mexico.This color-enhanced image of sea surface heights in the northeastern Gulf, produced using data from available satellite altimeters, including NASA's Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites, shows Isaac's path through the Gulf. The storm skirted around the Loop Current, then caught the outer edge of a warm eddy before passing directly over a cold eddy. The storm's track away from the Gulf's warmest waters has helped to keep Isaac from intensifying rapidly, as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita did in 2005.Warm eddies have high heat content and great potential to intensify hurricanes, whereas cold eddies have low heat content and may even cause hurricanes to weaken, as was the case with Hurricane Ivan in 2004.For more on NASA's satellite altimetry missions, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 28, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120828171746.htm | NASA sees Hurricane Isaac affecting the Northern Gulf Coast | NASA and NOAA satellites continue to provide detailed information on Hurricane Isaac as the storm bears down on the U.S. Gulf coast. NASA's TRMM and Terra satellites captured imagery, and NOAA's GOES-13 satellite provided animations of Isaac's march toward the coast today, Aug. 28. | Residents along the northern Gulf coast are bracing for the arrival of Isaac, which was recently upgraded to a hurricane by the National Hurricane Center as of 1:00 p.m. CDT. At that time, the center of Isaac was located about 55 miles (~85 km) south-southeast of the Mississippi and was moving northwest at 10 mph and was nearing southeastern coast of Louisiana.After crossing the southwestern tip of Haiti during the early morning hours of the 25th of August, Isaac paralleled the northern coast of Cuba the following day and moved through the Florida Straits with the center passing about 40 miles (~65 km) south of Key West, Florida on the afternoon of the 26th. All the while, Isaac remained a tropical storm despite passing over warm water. As it entered the southeastern Gulf of Mexico on the afternoon of August 26th, Isaac seemed poised to intensify with plenty of over warm Gulf water ahead and relatively low wind shear. However, even as Isaac moved northwest through this favorable environment into the central Gulf of Mexico, it was slow to intensify, becoming a stronger tropical storm but not a hurricane until just before landfall. Several factors seemed to inhibit Isaac's intensification. Being a large storm, Isaac's wind field is spread over a large area, making it less responsive to changes in central pressure. Also, dry air intrusions hindered the development of an inner core. The lack of an inner core was the main reason Isaac failed to really intensify.TRMM captured an image of Isaac on August 28 at 4:01 UTC (12:01 a.m. EDT) as it was approaching the northern Gulf coast. The image was TRMM shows a broad area of moderate (shown in green) to heavy rain (shown in red) wrapping around the southwestern side of the storm with only moderate to light rain (shown in blue) on the opposite side and no heavy rain near the center. The cloud shield (shown in white) is also well pronounced in the southwestern half of Isaac but inhibited along the northern edge. At the time of this image Isaac was a strong tropical storm with sustained winds of 60 knots (~70 mph). Because of its large size, Isaac stills poses a threat for storm surge and it's expected slower movement over Louisiana brings the risk of flooding.An animation of NOAA's GOES-13 satellite imagery from Aug. 26-28, 2012 of Hurricane Isaac's track through the Gulf of Mexico was animated by NASA's GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The animation shows Isaac is headed for New Orleans, exactly 7 years after hurricane Katrina.The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Hurricane Isaac as it approached Louisiana on Aug. 28 at 12:30 p.m. EDT. A large band of showers and thunderstorms stretched from the Carolinas, west over Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida and into Louisiana, wrapping into Isaac's center of circulation when it was centered about 100 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River.On Aug. 28 at 2 p.m. EDT, Hurricane Isaac's maximum sustained winds were near 75 mph (120 kmh). Isaac is a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. It was centered about 55 miles (85 km) south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River near latitude 28.4 north and longitude 88.7 west. Isaac is moving toward the northwest near 10 mph (17 kmh). The National Hurricane Center expects Hurricane Isaac should reach the coastline of southeastern Louisiana as early as this evening.At 2 p.m. EDT, the National Hurricane Center noted that tropical-storm-force winds were occurring at the mouth of the Mississippi river. That's where a NOAA observing site located at Southwest Pass, Louisiana reported sustained winds of 60 mph (93 kmh) and a gust to 76 mph (122 kmh) at an elevation of 80 feet. For full warnings, watches and locations, visit the National Hurricane Center's website at: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 28, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120828143319.htm | Evaluate children's stress after natural disasters | As Hurricane Isaac nears the Gulf Coast, one may wonder what the impact of natural disasters are on children. Who is most at risk for persistent stress reactions? How can such youth be identified and assisted in the aftermath of a destructive storm? | Dr. Annette M. La Greca, a professor of psychology and pediatrics at the University of Miami, and her colleagues, have been studying children's disaster reactions following Hurricanes Andrew (1992), Charley (2004) and Ike (2008). Recent findings from Hurricane Ike shed light on these questions about children's functioning.The new findings suggest that it is important to evaluate children's symptoms of post-traumatic stress and depression, in order to identify those who may be the most adversely affected. Findings also suggest that helping children cope with stressors that occur during or after the disaster may improve children's psychological functioning. "Children may have to move or change schools. Their neighborhood may not be safe for outdoor play and they may not be able to spend time with their friends. Children need help coping with these and other post-disaster stressors," La Greca says.In collaboration with Scott and Elaine Sevin, Dr. La Greca developed a workbook for parents to help their children cope with the many stressors that occur after disasters. The book gives parents tips for helping children stay healthy and fit, maintain normal routines, and cope with stressors and with emotions, such as fears and worries. The After the Storm workbook is available at no cost at A paper to be published in the | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 28, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120828111005.htm | Tropical Storm Isaac can damage your health | As Tropical Storm Isaac heads toward Louisiana on the verge of hurricane strength a lot can be at stake, including your health. According to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), the drastic climate changes brought on by the storm can cause mild to life-threating allergy and asthma symptoms. | As heavy rain hits several areas of the south, ragweed pollens that are in bloom can be washed away. However, once the rain clears, pollen counts can soar. Cold and warm fronts, along with winds created by the storm, can also affect pollen and increase mold levels."Hurricanes and other severe storms can create drastic climate changes," said allergist Stanley Fineman, MD, president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. "This erratic weather can influence the severity of allergy and asthma symptoms for the more than 40 million Americans that suffer from these conditions."In previous years, allergists have seen an increase in patients presenting heightened allergy and asthma symptoms during severe storms. These climate changes may also mean more misery this fall allergy season. Moisture and humidity can cause pollen and mold to linger. An Indian Summer can also lead to extended allergen counts."Although symptoms may not always be severe, allergies and asthma are serious and, in some cases, deadly," said Dr. Fineman. "The conditions, however, can be effectively controlled with proper diagnosis and treatment by a board certified allergist."ACAAI allergists recommend treating allergies and asthma before symptoms begin. Knowing the weather changes that affect your allergy and asthma symptoms can help you predict flare-ups. These climate changes include:• Heavy rainfall -Pollen and mold counts increase, and attract West Nile carrying mosquitos • Cool nights and warm days -- Tree, grass and ragweed pollens thrive in this environment • Heat and humidity -- Mold spores can multiply • Wind -- Pollen and mold can be stirred into the air, and when it's warm, pollen counts surge • Calm days -- Absent winds cause allergens to be grounded, but they can be stirred into the air when mowing the lawn or raking leavesIn the event of flooding, ACAAI recommends removing the water as soon as possible and cleaning any visible mold before it spreads. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 27, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120827130645.htm | Advanced tornado/hurricane shelter panels from recycled materials | Panels for a new high-tech shelter created at the University of Alabama at Birmingham have passed the National Storm Shelter Association's tornado threat test. | In the NSSA test, 15-pound two-by-fours fired from a pressure cannon were unable to penetrate the panels, made of recycled materials, in a dozen attempts. The wooden missiles hit the panels at 100 mph, the speed at which projectiles typically exit a tornado funnel spinning at more than 200 mph. Such a storm would rate EF5 on the Enhanced Fujita scale and be capable of leveling well-built homes. Passing the tornado test means that the panels also exceed the NSSA hurricane threat standard, which fires 9-pound two-by-fours at 60 to 75 mph.The successful test represents a first step toward commercial availability, which the team hopes to achieve by the 2013 tornado season. The final hurdle comes this fall when the assembled structure will undergo testing."Our effort to apply modern materials science to storm shelters started in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and grew more urgent after we saw 62 Alabama tornadoes in one day this past April," says Uday Vaidya, Ph.D., professor within the UAB Department of Materials Science & Engineering and project leader. In 2011, tornadoes caused 551 deaths nationally -- including 245 in Alabama -- and property damage exceeding $28 billion."With an average of more than 1,370 tornadoes per year for the past three years in the United States, it's time we changed they way storm shelters are built with the goal of saving more lives," Vaidya says.In the Aug. 1 tests, the UAB panels met the NSSA standards, which are based on Federal Emergency Management Association and International Council Code (ICC 500) requirements. Based on these early results, Vaidya and his team have lined up Sioux Manufacturing to fabricate the tabletop-size panels should the final approvals come through.The team estimated that if merely 30 percent of the roughly 600,000 homes in the Southeast United States were to opt for a storm-shelter retrofit, it would represent a $500 million market. UAB spinoff Innovative Composite Solutions, led by Vaidya and winner of the 2009 Alabama Launchpad Competition, would oversee aspects of panel assembly in Birmingham.No gaps in the armor The recipe of thermoplastic and fiberglass resins and fibers used in the panels are stronger per-unit density than the steel used in many current shelters and weigh 80 percent less, Vaidya says. Some of the same foams and fibers are used in the latest armored military vehicles.The panels, connected to each other and the floor of an interior room, are designed to keep a family from being crushed or becoming airborne and to protect against flying debris. They also leave the assembly line looking like typical interior walls; they do not need paint and never will corrode.Made from discarded liner once used to wrap offshore oil-rig pipes, the panels also embrace green engineering techniques. Recycled materials used in the experimental phase itself kept thousands of pounds of waste from landfills.The design team is continuing to refine the shelter roof and its armored door, which will be sheathed in the same paneling as the walls. The door also will feature a custom three-deadbolt locking system and piano hinges."To see panels pass our most extreme test the first time is very impressive," says Larry Tanner, P.E., manager of the NSSA/Texas Tech Debris Impact Test Facility. "This material is lightweight and sustainable and looks to have a bright future in the storm-shelter industry. If it saves even one life, it will have been worth the effort to design it."Selvum Pillay, Ph.D., associate professor in the UAB School of Engineering and team member at ICS, says the shelter represents one of many potential applications for a new generation of materials across many fields. "Related efforts under way at UAB seek to re-engineer the pilings that failed during Hurricane Katrina to flood New Orleans, dampen sound for quieter cities and better fortify combat helmets," Pillay says. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 23, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120823090914.htm | Cloud control could tame hurricanes, study shows | They are one of the most destructive forces of nature on Earth, but now environmental scientists are working to tame the hurricane. In a paper, published in | The team focused on the relationship between sea surface temperature and the energy associated with the destructive potential of hurricanes. Rather than seeding storm clouds or hurricanes directly, the idea is to target marine stratocumulus clouds, which cover an estimated quarter of the world's oceans, to prevent hurricanes forming."Hurricanes derive their energy from the heat contained in the surface waters of the ocean," said Dr Alan Gadian from the University of Leeds. "If we are able to increase the amount of sunlight reflected by clouds above the hurricane development region then there will be less energy to feed the hurricanes."Using a technique known as Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB), the authors propose that unmanned vehicles could spray tiny seawater droplets, a good fraction of which would rise into the clouds above, increasing their droplet numbers and thereby the cloud reflectivity and duration. In this way, more sunlight is bounced back into space, thereby reducing sea surface temperature.The team's calculations, based on a climate ocean atmosphere coupling model (HadGEM1) suggest this could reduce the power of developing hurricanes by one category. Somewhat different cloud-seeding projects, designed to directly influence rainfall amounts, already exist around the world and were most famously used in China during the 2008 Beijing Olympics."Data shows that over the last three decades hurricane intensity has increased in the Northern Atlantic, the Indian and South-West Pacific Oceans," said Gadian. "We simulated the impact of seeding on these three areas, with particular focus on the Atlantic hurricane months of August, September and October."The calculations show that when targeting clouds in identified hurricane development regions the technique could reduce an average sea surface temperature by up to a few degrees, greatly decreasing the amount of energy available to hurricane formation.One potential drawback to the idea is the impact of cloud seeding on rainfall in neighboring regions. The team noted concerns that seeding in the Atlantic could lead to a significant reduction of rainfall in the Amazon basin and elsewhere. However, if different patterns of seeding were used, such rainfall reductions were not found over land."Much more research is needed and we are clear that cloud seeding should not be deployed until we are sure there will be no adverse consequences regarding rainfall," concluded Gadian. "However if our calculations are correct, judicious seeding of maritime clouds could be invaluable for significantly reducing the destructive power of future hurricanes." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 15, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120815163110.htm | Two hurricane global hawks, two sets of instruments | NASA's Hurricane Severe Storm Sentinel Mission, or HS3, will be studying hurricanes at the end of the summer, and there will be two high-altitude, long-duration unmanned aircraft with different instruments flying over the storms. | The unmanned aircraft, dubbed "severe storm sentinels," are operated by pilots located in ground control stations at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops, Va., and NASA's Dryden Flight Center on Edwards Air Base, Calif. The NASA Global Hawk is well-suited for hurricane investigations because it can over-fly hurricanes at altitudes greater than 60,000 feet with flight durations of up to 28 hours.Using unmanned aircraft has many advantages. Hurricanes present an extreme environment that is difficult to sample. They cover thousands of square miles in area, and can also extend up to 50,000 feet in altitude. Second, they involve very high winds, turbulence and heavy precipitation. Third, ground conditions (high winds that create heavy seas or blowing material) make surface observations difficult."Several NASA centers are joining federal and university partners in the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission targeted to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin," said Scott Braun, principal investigator for the HS3 Mission and research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.Two NASA Global Hawks that will be flying during the HS3 mission. Each will have different payloads, or collections of instruments onboard. Necessary observations are winds, temperature, humidity (water), precipitation, and aerosol (particle) profiles from the surface to the lower stratosphere.The first Global Hawk payload, installed in aircraft No. 872, will consist of three instruments. That payload is for sampling the environment that hurricanes are embedded within. A laser system called Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) developed at NASA Goddard will be located in the Global Hawk's nose. CPL measures cloud structure and aerosols such as dust, sea salt particles, smoke particles by bouncing laser light off of those particles and clouds. An infrared instrument called the Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder or S-HIS from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, will be located in the belly of the Global Hawk. It can be used to remotely measure or remotely sense the temperature and water vapor vertical profile along with the sea surface temperature and some cloud properties. A dropsonde system from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will be located in the tail of the aircraft. The dropsonde system ejects small sensors tied to parachutes that drift down through the storm measuring winds, temperature and humidity.Global Hawk No. 871 will also carry a payload of three instruments. That Global Hawk's prime responsibility is to sample the cores of hurricanes. A microwave system called the High-Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer or HAMSR, created by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will be located in the aircraft's nose. HAMSR measures temperature, water vapor, and vertical precipitation profiles. y.A radar system called the High-altitude Imaging Wind & Rain Airborne Profiler or HIWRAP from NASA Goddard will be located in the second (No. 871) Global Hawk's belly. It is similar to a ground radar system but pointed downward. HIWRAP measures cloud structure and winds. The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., will be located in the aircraft's tail section. HIRAD measures microwave radiation emitted from the surface and atmosphere. The HIRAD observations yield surface wind speeds and rain rates.y.Both Global Hawks will be flying out of NASA Wallops Flight Facility in September, the peak month for the Atlantic Hurricane Season. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 13, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120813155511.htm | Fresh water breathes fresh life into hurricanes | An analysis of a decade's worth of tropical cyclones shows that when hurricanes blow over ocean regions swamped by fresh water, the conditions can unexpectedly intensify the storm. Although the probability that hurricanes will hit such conditions is small, ranging from 10 to 23 percent, the effect is potentially large: Hurricanes can become 50 percent more intense, researchers report in a study appearing this week in | These results might help improve predictions of a hurricane's power in certain regions. Such conditions occur where large river systems pour fresh water into the ocean, such as by the Amazon River system, the Ganges River system, or where tropical storms rain considerably, as in the western Pacific Ocean."Sixty percent of the world's population lives in areas affected by tropical cyclones," said ocean scientist Karthik Balaguru at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Cyclone Nargis killed more than one hundred and thirty eight thousand people in Burma in 2008. We can predict the paths cyclones take, but we need to predict their intensity better to protect people susceptible to their destructive power."Most hurricanes passing over the ocean lessen in strength as the ocean water cools off due to mixing by the strong winds under the cyclone: this pumps less heat into them. However, Balaguru, his PNNL colleagues and researchers led by Ping Chang at Texas A&M University and Ocean University of China in Qingdao, China found that when enough fresh water pours into the ocean to form what they call a barrier layer, typically about 50 meters below the surface, the ocean water can't cool as much and continues to pump heat into the cyclone. Instead of dying out, the storms grow in intensity by 50 percent on average.A rough estimate for the destruction wreaked by a hurricane is the cube of its intensity. "A 50 percent increase in intensity can result in a much larger amount of destruction and death," said Balaguru.Satellites are very useful for tracking and helping to predict the path of tropical storms as they move across the ocean and develop into cyclones, as well as predicting where the storms will make landfall.But current technology isn't as good at predicting how intense the storm will be when it does. Satellites can only see the ocean from above, but it's the ocean's heat that feeds the storm. So Balaguru decided to look at the ocean itself.To do so, Balaguru started with one hurricane: Omar. Omar nearly topped the scales as a Category 4 storm in the eastern Caribbean Sea in October 2008, causing $79 million in damages. Balaguru and colleagues collected data about ocean conditions including water temperature, salt content, and water density, and compared that data to the intensity of the storm.Most of the time, a tropical storm travels across the ocean, where its winds suck up heat from the ocean and builds. But then the heat loss from the water mixes the surface layer -- the warmest, least dense layer of ocean water -- and dredges up colder water from the ocean below it. The colder water cools off the surface temperature, providing less energy and lessening the storm's intensity.It made sense that conditions that would prevent the top ocean layer from cooling off would increase the intensity of storms, so Balaguru zoomed in on Omar's conditions. As expected, the ocean surface cooled the least along Omar's path as the storm peaked in intensity.However, when Balaguru looked at the structure of the ocean along Omar's path, he saw another layer, called a barrier layer, between the surface and the colder ocean below. Omar's most intense episodes occurred when it found itself over these thick barrier layers.But Omar was just one storm. To determine whether the barrier layer connection was real, Balaguru looked at hundreds more tropical storms.Balaguru and colleagues examined 587 tropical storms and cyclones between 1998 and 2007 in the western tropical Atlantic, the western Pacific and the northern Indian Oceans.They found that the tropical storms over thick barrier layers cooled off 36 percent less than storms over areas lacking barrier layers, and barrier layer storms drew 7 percent more heat from the ocean than other storms. That translated into 50 percent more intense hurricanes on average.The barrier layer has this effect on storms, Balaguru said, because it insulates the surface layer from the colder water below, preventing the storm's access to cooling water. When fresh water dumps into the salty ocean, it makes the surface layer less salty, creating the barrier layer below it. When a passing storm causes the surface layer to pull up water from below, the water comes from the barrier layer rather than the much colder water beneath.The team supported their observational analysis with a computer model, comparing tropical cyclones over regions with and without barrier layers. The model found a similar decrease in cooling by the barrier layer storms, more heat transferred from the ocean to the storm, and a similar intensification.This work addressed what happens to hurricanes now, under current climate conditions. Scientists predict that global warming will have an effect on the ocean water cycle. Future research could explore how the distribution of the barrier layers changes in a warmer world.This work was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the National Science Foundation of China, the Chinese National Basic Research Program and the Chinese Ministry of Education. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 10, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120810134523.htm | NOAA raises hurricane season prediction despite expected El Niño | This year's Atlantic hurricane season got off to a busy start, with 6 named storms to date, and may have a busy second half, according to the updated hurricane season outlook issued Aug. 9, 2012 by NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, a division of the National Weather Service. The updated outlook still indicates a 50 percent chance of a near-normal season, but increases the chance of an above-normal season to 35 percent and decreases the chance of a below-normal season to only 15 percent from the initial outlook issued in May. | Across the entire Atlantic Basin for the season -- June 1 to November 30 -- NOAA's updated seasonal outlook projects a total (which includes the activity-to-date of tropical storms Alberto, Beryl, Debbie, Florence and hurricanes Chris and Ernesto) of:The numbers are higher from the initial outlook in May, which called for 9-15 named storms, 4-8 hurricanes and 1-3 major hurricanes. Based on a 30-year average, a normal Atlantic hurricane season produces 12 named storms, six hurricanes, and three major hurricanes."We are increasing the likelihood of an above-normal season because storm-conducive wind patterns and warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures are now in place in the Atlantic," said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at the Climate Prediction Center. "These conditions are linked to the ongoing high activity era for Atlantic hurricanes that began in 1995. Also, strong early-season activity is generally indicative of a more active season."However, NOAA seasonal climate forecasters also announced today that El Niño will likely develop in August or September."El Niño is a competing factor, because it strengthens the vertical wind shear over the Atlantic, which suppresses storm development. However, we don't expect El Niño's influence until later in the season," Bell said."We have a long way to go until the end of the season, and we shouldn't let our guard down," said Laura Furgione, acting director of NOAA's National Weather Service. "Hurricanes often bring dangerous inland flooding as we saw a year ago in the Northeast with Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee. Even people who live hundreds of miles from the coast need to remain vigilant through the remainder of the season.""It is never too early to prepare for a hurricane," said Tim Manning, FEMA's deputy administrator for protection and national preparedness. "We are in the middle of hurricane season and now is the time to get ready. There are easy steps you can take to get yourself and your family prepared. Visit | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 10, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120810113101.htm | NASA Global Hawk pilots face challenges flying hurricane missions | NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel, or HS3, mission will be a complex one for the pilots flying NASA's Global Hawk aircraft from the ground. The mission, set to begin this month, will be the first deployment for the unmanned aircraft away from their regular base of operations at the Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. In addition the pilots will be operating the aircraft from two locations on opposite coasts. | After the upload of specialized science equipment is complete, the two Global Hawks will fly from one coast of the United States to another over sparsely populated areas and open water to reach NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.NASA Wallops was selected as a deployment site because the area of scientific interest is the Atlantic Ocean, especially the eastern Atlantic where hurricanes begin to form. Flights from the U.S. East Coast take less transit time to the target than those from NASA Dryden and allow the aircraft to travel further out over the Atlantic and collect data for a longer period of time.Waiting at Wallops will be a mobile ground control center, mobile payload operations center and Ku-band satellite dish -- all necessary for operation of the high-altitude and long-endurance aircraft. Scientists, maintenance personnel and three pilots will support flights from Wallops.During take off and landing of the Global Hawk, the aircraft must be in line-of-sight communications with the pilot. The pilots deployed to Wallops will manage this activity from the Global Hawk Mobile Operations Facility, handing off operation of the aircraft to Dryden after reaching an altitude of approximately 30,000 feet.Additional pilots sitting in Dryden's Global Hawk Operations Center will receive the verbal hand-off via telephone, cross check data links with pilots at Wallops, and assume responsibility for the aircraft's operation until the mission is completed when the landing operation transfers back to Wallops. This close coordination alleviates the necessity to deploy a larger number of pilots.When an unmanned aircraft is in the air, the ground-based pilots maintain continual contact with Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control specialists.The interesting scenario for HS3 is that the pilots are in California's Mojave Desert, talking with East Coast controllers through a radio located on the aircraft. When flying in oceanic airspace, pilots talk with international controllers over telephone. This communication is vital as air traffic controllers provide the altitude and number of other aircraft sharing the same area of the U.S.'s National Airspace System and international air space as the NASA aircraft. When the Global Hawk reaches an altitude of between 60,000 and 65,000 feet, there are few aircraft competing for space.Although the flight path of the Global Hawk is pre-programmed into the aircraft's flight control computers prior to a mission, pilots are able to override the flight plan to accommodate the scientists' requests. The scientists will observe flights from the mobile payload operations facility at Wallops where information will stream onto computer monitors from their instruments. The payload manager at Wallops will send the scientists' request for change in altitude or course to Dryden's mission director in the control room with the pilots at Dryden. The pilots operating the Global Hawk change the flight path by entering a new heading, airspeed or altitude on the primary flight display.All Global Hawk pilots are rated to fly manned aircraft. The pilots commented that it is possible to become so engaged during a Global Hawk flight that it seems like a flying a manned aircraft. They add that much of the sensory information available to pilots of manned aircraft is missing for the unmanned aircraft pilots. It is not possible to smell the fuel, see the weather and terrain, hear the engine starting, or feel the movement from a ground control center. An unmanned aircraft pilot is dependent upon computers and their displays for updates on the health of the vehicle.The Global Hawk pilots will have to deal with turbulence in the hurricane flights. Fortunately, the cruise altitude is above most of the unstable air associated with that weather phenomenon. In addition, an instrument measuring turbulence was adapted and will be installed with the science payload.Global Hawk pilots will be well-prepared for the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel mission. They spend hours planning missions, flying a simulator and have a support team in the "cockpit" consisting of a co-pilot, mission director and control room operator. Many are seasoned from flying this type aircraft for the military. Although their tools are a mouse, keyboard and computer displays, the NASA Global Hawk pilots find their work challenging and are proud of the job they do to support the U.S. science community. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
August 1, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120801154720.htm | Forget blizzards and hurricanes, heat waves are to die for | In the pantheon of deadly weather events, heat waves rule. When it comes to gnarly weather, tornadoes, blizzards and hurricanes seem to get most of our attention, perhaps because their destructive power makes for imagery the media can't ignore. But for sheer killing power, heat waves do in far more people than even the most devastating hurricane. Ask medical historian Richard Keller. | Keller, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of medical history and bioethics, is compiling a detailed account of the epic 2003 heat wave that broiled parts of Europe that summer and killed an estimated 70,000 people.During the course of three excruciating weeks in August of that year, a massive high-pressure system parked over Europe, producing the hottest summer weather in more than 500 years and leading to most of those fatalities. It was so hot electrical cables melted, nuclear reactors could not be cooled, water pumps failed, and museum specimens liquefied.By comparison, Hurricane Katrina and its floods, which devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, exacted a death toll of 1,836 people.France, in particular, was hard hit by the deadly 2003 heat wave, when temperatures surpassed 100 degrees Fahrenheit on seven days. "Measured by mortality, it was the worst natural disaster in contemporary France," says Keller, who with support from the UW-Madison Graduate School, the National Science Foundation and the city of Paris is working on a history to detail the effects of the heat wave on the City of Light where, according to official tallies, 14,802 people died.The catastrophe, occurred at a time when many Europeans, including government officials and physicians, were on annual holiday and was first sensed by undertakers, who were being overwhelmed with unclaimed bodies, some of which had to be stored in a refrigerated warehouse outside the city as mortuaries ran short of space.Contributing to the death toll, explains Keller, were a host of social variables such as age of the victims, social status, gender and where they lived. In Paris, many of the victims were elderly women who lived alone, usually on the top floors of cheap, poorly ventilated walk-ups."People who lived in these apartments died like flies," according to Keller. "This was as much a social as a health and epidemiological disaster. There were social factors that made some people much more vulnerable."Age, of course, put many victims at more physiological risk. The elderly often don't notice the effects of dehydration and so tend not to drink enough water. And the medications many older people take can exacerbate the effects of extreme heat as can medications used to treat psychiatric disorders and neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease.However, Keller, who pored over records of the dead, visited their neighborhoods and talked to friends and relatives, found that the greatest risk was to people who lived on their own."The single biggest factor for dying was if you lived alone," he says.The social dynamics of death from extreme heat, argues Keller, can be instructive as heat waves seem to be occurring more frequently and with greater intensity and duration: "Vulnerability to extreme events is more complex than we know and we need to think about broader scale adaptation," Keller says, noting that we build homes, apartments and public housing with more attention to staying warm in the winter than keeping cool during the dog days of summer."We have to recognize that heat kills far more people than the cold and that those most likely to die are people on the social margins of society," Keller says. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
July 11, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/07/120711111401.htm | Tropical cyclones' role in ending drought in Southeast US charted | Hurricanes and tropical storms can wreak havoc when they make landfall, often resulting in fatalities and causing billions of dollars in property damages. But they also can have a silver lining, particularly when they are "drought busters," as was the case for Tropical Storm Debby, which dropped more than 20 inches of rain in some parts of Florida and Georgia in late June. | "Drought is a far more protracted natural disaster than a tropical cyclone, and drought can have a huge economic impact," said Dr. Peter Soulé, a professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at Appalachian State University."Generally, the news coverage of tropical storms runs to the negative, such as damages and lives lost," Soulé said. "However, there are some benefits to landfalling tropical systems from the rainfall they produce that can end drought conditions."Storms that are considered tropical cyclones include tropical disturbances, tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes. The beneficial effects of "drought busters" have been studied since 1968 when A. L. Sugg published "Beneficial Aspects of the Tropical Cyclone," in the Soulé and three other researchers analyzed tropical cyclones' role in reducing drought conditions in the Southeastern United States. Their work, "Drought-Busting Tropical Cyclones in the Southeastern United States: 1950-2008" was published in the March 2012 issue of the journal Dr. Justin Maxwell from Indiana University was the lead author of the research article. In addition to Soulé, the other authors were Dr. Paul Knapp from UNC Greensboro and Dr. Jason Ortegren from the University of West Florida. They found that during the 58-year period, up to 41 percent of all droughts and at least 20 percent of droughts in three-fourths of the climate divisions in the Southeast were ended by tropical cyclone drought busters. In addition, they found that 4 to 10 percent of all rainfall in the Southeast occurred during the tropical cyclone season and that as much as 15 percent of rainfall in the Carolinas occurred from tropical cyclones."It turns out tropical cyclones were a very important process for ending drought," Soulé said of the time period and region studied."Drought can be a far worse natural hazard in terms of cost because it is so long lived and affects such large areas," Soulé said. "In the broad scheme of natural hazards it tends to rank high in terms of cost. People don't usually think about how bad drought can be and how much money drought can cost."For example, the 1988 drought is estimated to have caused between $80 and $120 billion in damage including crop losses and destructive wildfires. Last year's drought across the Southeast cost more than $10 billion in agricultural losses. Droughts also impact urban and rural water quality.Currently, 65 percent of the U.S. is experiencing drought, according to the drought monitor website at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Last year's season saw only one storm to make landfall in the Southeast."This year has been unusual in that we have already had four named storms, two which developed in May before the official beginning of the hurricane season on June 1," Soulé said. "But there is no way to know what this season is going to hold." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
June 28, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628181739.htm | New insights into the effects of stress on pregnancy | Expectant mothers who dealt with the strain of a hurricane or major tropical storm passing nearby during their pregnancy had children who were at elevated risk for abnormal health conditions at birth, according to a study led by a Princeton University researcher that offers new insights into the effects of stress on pregnancy. | The study used birth records from Texas and meteorological information to identify children born in the state between 1996 and 2008 whose mothers were in the path of a major tropical storm or hurricane during pregnancy. The children's health at birth was compared with that of siblings whose gestation didn't coincide with a major weather event.The study found that mothers living within 30 kilometers of a hurricane's path during their third trimester were 60 percent more likely to have a newborn with abnormal conditions, which are detailed on birth records. Those conditions included being on a ventilator for more than 30 minutes or experiencing meconium aspiration, which occurs when a newborn breathes in a mixture of meconium -- or early feces -- and amniotic fluid around the time of delivery. Increased risk was also found following exposure to weather-related stressors in the first trimester, while evidence was less clear for exposure in the second trimester. The researchers were able to isolate the impact of stress caused by the storm from other factors, such as changes in the availability of health care in a storm's aftermath.The study breaks ground by honing in on new -- and potentially better -- ways to measure the impact of prebirth stress on newborns and opens avenues for further research into the potential impact on such children's later development, said lead researcher Janet Currie, Princeton's Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and director of the Center for Health and Wellbeing."Probably the most important finding of our study is that it does seem like being subjected to stress in pregnancy has some negative effect on the baby, but that the effect is more subtle than some of the previous studies have suggested," said Currie, who conducted the study along with Maya Rossin-Slater, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Economics at Columbia University.Anna Aizer, associate professor of economics and public policy at Brown University who wasn't involved in the study, said the research "really raises the bar in terms of identification of the effect of stressful events in-utero on birth outcomes.""Previous work has not really been able to isolate the effect as well as Currie and Rossin-Slater have," said Aizer, whose research focuses on issues related to children's well-being.Meconium aspiration -- usually a sign of fetal distress -- and other respiratory problems that necessitate a baby being placed on a ventilator can generally be treated successfully, but the study offers new paths for future research about the long-term health of children born in the wake of stressful events such as hurricanes."I think there's every reason to believe that if you have a better measure of child health -- like you knew this child was having breathing problems at birth -- that might be a stronger predictor of longer-term outcomes," Currie said. "There's a lot of interest in this whole area of how things that happen very early in life can affect future outcomes."Previous research into the impact of similar types of stress has found changes in length of gestation and birth weight, but the new study didn't find a significant effect on those measures, Currie said.Currie said one explanation for the difference is that the new study utilized data that allowed the researchers to control for changes in the population of an area around the time of a storm that could have affected the previous findings. Earlier research hasn't been able to account for the way the population of an area changes around the time of a stressful event -- with people of certain demographic groups more likely than others to move away or stay nearby.The new study included data on eight hurricanes and tropical storms that hit any part of Texas between 1996 and 2008 and caused more than $10 million damage. The most damaging storms were Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, which caused more than $50 billion in damage and 40 deaths, and Hurricane Ike, which caused $19.3 billion in damage and 103 deaths.Experiencing a hurricane or major tropical storm can have a significant impact on people that goes well beyond stress. However, Currie said the researchers were able to determine that findings related to abnormal health conditions at birth generally weren't tied to disruption of medical care or property damage caused by the storms, such as damage to an expectant mother's home that might lead to injury or increased risk of illness. They also found little consistent evidence that the stress associated with storms affected mothers' behaviors, such as smoking, eating as reflected in weight gain and use of prenatal care.One potential cause of the health problems found in the study is an increase in stress hormones caused by the storm, which occurred in what is known as the neuroendocrine pathway."I think the takeaway finding is that it's worth doing more focused research on those pathways and looking for more subtle effects on the fetus than just looking at birth weight and preterm delivery," Currie said. "And it would be really great if we could follow over time and see what happens to children who are affected by these types of events."Aizer said the research could also have implications beyond the context of natural disasters."Previous work has shown poor mothers are exposed to more stressors. Currie and Rossin-Slater's work suggests that exposure to stress might be one of the mechanisms explaining why poor women have worse birth outcomes," Aizer said. "Policymakers concerned with improving the outcomes of poor families should consider these findings."The study, which is described in a working paper circulated in May by the National Bureau of Economic Research, was supported by funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
June 26, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120626113751.htm | NOAA: Data from new satellite implemented in record time; Meteorologists are now using information for weather forecasts | Data flowing from a new generation of instruments onboard the Suomi NPP satellite, a joint NASA/NOAA mission, are being used in NOAA's global numerical weather forecast system a record seven months after launch, nearly three times faster than previous missions. | After a rigorous and accelerated evaluation period, meteorologists began using the new data in operational weather models on May 22, 2012. These models are the foundation for all public and private weather forecasts in the United States.The Suomi NPP polar-orbiting satellite circles Earth every 102 minutes, flying 512 miles above the surface, capturing data from the land, oceans and atmosphere. It carries five instruments, including the Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), which captures atmospheric temperature and water vapor information used to assess the atmosphere and predict weather."It takes tremendous effort to ensure data from a new satellite are accurate and ready to be used in advanced numerical weather models. Reaching this milestone clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of the partnership between NOAA and NASA and also speaks to the urgency both agencies have for getting these data into NOAA's weather models to enhance our forecasts," said Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., NOAA deputy administrator.Sullivan added, "This data stream from Suomi NPP ensures NOAA will continue to provide life-saving forecasts. This is welcome news after the devastating weather events of 2011, and as the United States comes closer to becoming a Weather Ready Nation."Along with the ATMS, another Suomi NPP instrument, the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS), is producing higher spatial and vertical resolution data about the atmospheric temperature and water vapor which, when fully operational, will improve NOAA's weather prediction models for both short and long-term forecasts. In addition to the ATMS and CrIS, three other instruments (the Visible Infrared Imaging radiometer Suite (VIIRS), the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS), and the Clouds and Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) are flying on Suomi NPP and are performing well.ATMS also benefits NOAA's hurricane forecasters. When ATMS looks into the eye of a hurricane, it will help provide a clearer picture of the hurricane's warm core and the intensity of its rainfall. Additionally, CrIS will provide more accurate data to the global observing system with the potential to improve prediction for hurricanes and other devastating weather events.NOAA officials credit the accelerated ATMS data flow to a focused commitment and unprecedented science partnerships within NOAA and through the NASA-NOAA-NSF-Department of Defense Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA) that sped the development of software used in the advanced models. The JCSDA, established in 2001, was created to speed up the time it takes for data from a newly launched satellite to be used operationally in forecasts. NASA provided the ATMS instrument.The Suomi NPP mission is the bridge between NOAA's Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) and NASA's Earth Observing System satellites to the next-generation Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), which NOAA will operate. The JPSS program is now operating Suomi NPP, which is the first spacecraft in the JPSS series. The second in the series, JPSS-1, is on track to launch in 2017. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
June 25, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120625203012.htm | NASA sees Tropical Storm Debby's clouds blanket Florida | Like a white blanket, Tropical Storm Debby's clouds covered the entire state of Florida in a NASA satellite image. | Two satellites have captured imagery that shows Tropical Storm Debby has thrown a large white blanket of clouds over the state of Florida, and it doesn't seem like that blanket is going to lift quickly as Debby moves slowly north.NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Debby and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument onboard the satellite captured a visible image of the storm on Sunday, June 24 at 3:00 p.m. EDT. The image clearly showed Debby's center over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, and the bulk of the clouds, showers and thunderstorms wrapping from the north to the east to the south of the center of circulation and covering the entire state of Florida. The northern-most extent of Debby's clouds were over southern Alabama and south Georgia. Tropical-storm-force winds on June 25 extend outward up to 230 miles (370 km) mostly southeast of the center, and the imagery from MODIS shows that the cloud cover is most extensive in that direction.On Monday, June 25, 2012 at 11 a.m. EDT, Debby's maximum sustained winds had dropped to 45 mph (75 kmh). It was located just 75 miles south of Apalachicola, Florida, near 28.6 North and 85.2 West. Debby was crawling to the north at 3 mph (6 kmh). Debby's minimum central pressure was 995 millibars.On June 25, 2012 at 11:45 a.m. EDT a visible satellite image of Debby captured by NOAA's GOES-13 satellite showed that the storm's clouds continued to blanket all of Florida. The image also showed that the bulk of Debby's clouds and showers continued to be from northeat to southeast of the center of circulation, which was still in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Both the GOES-13 and the MODIS satellite images were created at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.The National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that Debby is expected to continue crawling to the northeast or east-northeast over the next couple of days, bringing more soaking rains for the sunshine state. The NHC doesn't expect much change in intensity, however.As a result of Debby's new more northerly track, some of the warnings and watches have been changed as of 11 a.m. on June 25. The tropical storm warning from the Florida-Alabama border to Destin, Fla. has been discontinued. In addition, the tropical storm watch from the Suwannee River to Englewood has been changed to a tropical storm warning. The tropical storm warning area now covers the Florida Gulf Coast from Destin to Englewood.A quick look at watches and warnings in effect on Monday, June 25 for three western Florida cities tell the story of what Debby is doing to its residents. In Tampa, there is a Tropical Storm Warning, a Coastal Flood Warning, a Tornado Watch, a Flood Warning, a High Surf Advisory and a Flood Watch as a result of Debby. Further north in Pensacola, there is a High Surf Advisory and a Wind Advisory. South of Tampa in Fort Myers,there is a Tornado Watch, Coastal Flood Advisory, High Surf Advisory and Flood Watch.Tropical-storm-force winds are expected to continue over portions of the Florida Gulf coast today. Heavy rainfall is a key concern today, after Florida was soaked yesterday from Debby. According to the NHC, northern and central Florida can see accumulations of 10 to 20 inches with as much as 25 inches. Southeastern Georgia and extreme South Carolina will also feel Debby's wet wrath, as totals between 5 and 15 inches are possible in both areas.Storm surges are expected to range between one and five feet along the Gulf coast between Apalachee Bay to southeastern Louisiana. Isolated tornadoes are also a threat as they are with any landfalling tropical cyclone. Some are possible today across the eastern Florida panhandle, Florida peninsula and southern Georgia.NASA's Kennedy Space Center on the Atlantic coast is included in a tornado watch for the area due to a line of thunderstorms approaching from the west. Elevated winds are expected throughout the day and for the next few days. Between one to three inches of rainfal are expected over the next day, and are likely to continue as Debby crawls northward. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
June 18, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120618153231.htm | NOAA predicts a near-normal 2012 Atlantic hurricane season | Conditions in the atmosphere and the ocean favor a near-normal hurricane season in the Atlantic Basin this season, NOAA has just announced from Miami at its Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, and home to the Hurricane Research Division. | For the entire six-month season, which begins June 1, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center says there's a 70 percent chance of nine to 15 named storms (with top winds of 39 mph or higher), of which four to eight will strengthen to a hurricane (with top winds of 74 mph or higher) and of those one to three will become major hurricanes (with top winds of 111 mph or higher, ranking Category 3, 4 or 5). Based on the period 1981-2010, an average season produces 12 named storms with six hurricanes, including three major hurricanes."NOAA's outlook predicts a less active season compared to recent years," said NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D. "But regardless of the outlook, it's vital for anyone living or vacationing in hurricane-prone locations to be prepared. We have a stark reminder this year with the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew." Andrew, the Category 5 hurricane that devastated South Florida on August 24, 1992, was the first storm in a late-starting season that produced only six named storms.Favoring storm development in 2012: the continuation of the overall conditions associated with the Atlantic high-activity era that began in 1995, in addition to near-average sea surface temperatures across much of the tropical Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea, known as the Main Development Region. Two factors now in place that can limit storm development, if they persist, are: strong wind shear, which is hostile to hurricane formation in the Main Development Region, and cooler sea surface temperatures in the far eastern Atlantic."Another potentially competing climate factor would be El Niño if it develops by late summer to early fall. In that case, conditions could be less conducive for hurricane formation and intensification during the peak months (August-October) of the season, possibly shifting the activity toward the lower end of the predicted range," said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center."NOAA's improvement in monitoring and predicting hurricanes has been remarkable over the decades since Andrew, in large part because of our sustained commitment to research and better technology. But more work remains to unlock the secrets of hurricanes, especially in the area of rapid intensification and weakening of storms," said Lubchenco. "We're stepping up to meet this challenge through our Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project, which has already demonstrated exciting early progress toward improving storm intensity forecasts."Lubchenco added that more accurate forecasts about a storm's intensity at landfall and extending the forecast period beyond five days will help America become a more Weather-Ready Nation.In a more immediate example of research supporting hurricane forecasting, NOAA this season is introducing enhancements to two of the computer models available to hurricane forecasters -- the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) models. The HWRF model has been upgraded with a higher resolution and improved atmospheric physics. This latest version has demonstrated a 20 to 25 percent improvement in track forecasts and a 15 percent improvement in intensity forecasts relative to the previous version while also showing improvement in the representation of storm structure and size. Improvements to the GFDL model for 2012 include physics upgrades that are expected to reduce or eliminate a high bias in the model's intensity forecasts.The seasonal outlook does not predict how many storms will hit land. Forecasts for individual storms and their impacts are provided by NOAA's National Hurricane Center, which continuously monitors the tropics for storm development and tracking throughout the season using an array of tools including satellites, advance computer modeling, hurricane hunter aircraft, and land- and ocean-based observations sources such as radars and buoys. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
June 7, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120607185751.htm | U.S. experienced second warmest May, warmest spring on record, NOAA reports | According to NOAA scientists, the average temperature for the contiguous U.S. during May was 64.3°F, 3.3°F above the long-term average, making it the second warmest May on record. The month's high temperatures also contributed to the warmest spring, warmest year-to-date, and warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895. | The spring season's (March-May) nationally averaged temperature was 57.1°F, 5.2°F above the 1901-2000 long-term average, surpassing the previous warmest spring (1910) by 2.0°F.Precipitation totals across the country were mixed during May, with the nation as a whole being drier-than-average. The nationally averaged precipitation total of 2.51 inches was 0.36 inch below average. The coastal Southeast received some drought relief when Tropical Storm Beryl brought heavy rains to the region late in the month.This monthly analysis from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides government, business and community leaders so they can make informed decisions.Additional information can be found on the following web sites: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
June 5, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120605113733.htm | Weak bridges identified in Texas | Preliminary results from research at Rice University show more than a dozen Gulf Coast bridges on or near Galveston Island would likely suffer severe damage if subjected to a hurricane with a similar landfall as Hurricane Ike but with 30 percent stronger winds. | An awareness of which bridges are most at risk of damage in a strong hurricane helps public safety officials, said Jamie Padgett, a Rice assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering."We've been sharing these findings with emergency management agencies," Padgett said. "Some of the groups, particularly in the Clear Lake area, are interested in this information so they can plan emergency response routes, or at least do some hypothetical scenarios to think through their responses."Padgett leads a research team modeling the performance of dozens of bridges in the Houston-Galveston region. They're determining how well bridges would withstand such a hurricane from their assessment of damage by 2008′s Ike, the third-costliest storm in American history.Padgett and Matthew Stearns, a former undergraduate student in her lab, wrote about the effect of hurricanes on bridges in a new book, "Lessons From Hurricane Ike," based on analyses after Ike and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The book was published recently by Texas A&M University Press. The book incorporates material from more than 20 researchers associated with the Rice-based Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center.After Ike, Padgett and Stearns published a paper in the American Society of Civil Engineers' journal on the impact of Ike on bridge infrastructure in Greater Houston and Galveston.The first bridge featured in their lengthy report was the Rollover Pass Bridge on Bolivar Peninsula, northeast of Galveston. In 2008, the span, which sat 5.3 feet over the mean water elevation, was given National Bridge Inventory condition ratings of "good" for the superstructure and substructure, "very good" for the deck and "satisfactory" for the channel; yet that same year it was destroyed in Ike's 15-foot surge and five-foot waves. This highlights the fact that condition ratings alone are not sufficient indicators of bridge safety, particularly in the face of natural hazards, Padgett said, and it underscores the importance of risk-assessment studies such as those conducted by her group.The bridge was one of 53 evaluated by Padgett and her team after Ike. They used data compiled by themselves and others, including the Texas Department of Transportation and design firm HNTB, which worked on the state's recovery effort. Some bridges (mostly timber structures in rural areas) were destroyed by the storm surge and wave loading. Others were damaged by debris impact that accompanied the wind and water, and 25 more were weakened by scouring, where earth underneath the structures and supporting elements was washed away. Even 17 of the evaluated bridges that were far enough inland to escape significant storm surge suffered some degree of damage.Advances in high-strength, corrosion-resistant materials and new design and construction techniques will help the next generation of bridges withstand such damage, said Padgett, who earned a coveted CAREER award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) last year to model sustainable solutions for bridge infrastructure subjected to multiple threats. But there are also fixes available to help existing bridges. "Through our work, we've identified some simple solutions," she said. "Adding details and retrofits to the structures, like shear keys or tie-downs, are potential solutions that would help protect bridges during hurricanes."Padgett said the Houston Endowment's support of the SSPEED Center, along with her NSF award, were critical to her work. Her group also studies the impact of earthquakes and other factors, including increased load from a growing population, on bridges."Infrastructure reliability is certainly a hot topic worldwide," said Padgett, who is also studying bridges in California and Charleston, S.C. "We try to pick strategic locations that have an array of threats." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
June 1, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120601123402.htm | Unmanned NASA storm sentinels set for hurricane study | Ah, June. It marks the end of school, the start of summer...and the official start of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season, which got off to an early start in May with the formation of Tropical Storms Alberto and Beryl. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters are calling for a near-normal hurricane season this year. But whether the season turns out to be wild or wimpy, understanding what makes these ferocious storms form and rapidly intensify is a continuing area of scientific research, and is the focus of the NASA-led Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) airborne mission that kicks off this summer. | Beginning in late August through early October and continuing for the next several years during the Atlantic hurricane season, NASA will dispatch two unmanned aircraft equipped with specialized instruments high above tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean basin. These "severe storm sentinels" will investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., will join several other NASA centers and numerous federal and university partners in the HS3 mission.The autonomously-flown NASA Global Hawk aircraft are well-suited for hurricane investigations. They can over-fly hurricanes at altitudes greater than 18,300 meters (60,000 feet), and fly up to 28 hours at a time -- something piloted aircraft would find nearly impossible to do. Global Hawks were used in the agency's 2010 Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) hurricane mission and the Global Hawk Pacific (GloPac) environmental science mission. The Global Hawks will deploy from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and are based at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif."Hurricane intensity can be very hard to predict because of an insufficient understanding of how clouds and wind patterns within a storm interact with the storm's environment," said Scott Braun, HS3 mission principal investigator and research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "HS3 seeks to improve our understanding of these processes by taking advantage of the surveillance capabilities of the Global Hawk along with measurements from a suite of advanced instruments."One aircraft will sample the environment of storms while the other will measure eyewall and rainband winds and precipitation," Braun continued. HS3 will examine the large-scale environment that tropical storms form in and move through and how that environment affects the inner workings of the storms.HS3 will address the controversial role of the hot, dry and dusty Saharan Air Layer in tropical storm formation and intensification. Past studies have suggested the layer can both favor and suppress intensification. In addition, HS3 will examine the extent to which deep convection in the inner-core region of storms is a key driver of intensity change or just a response to storms finding favorable sources of energy.JPL's High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) microwave sounder instrument will be one of a set of instruments aboard the Global Hawk that will focus on the inner region of the storms. Most of these instruments represent advanced technology developed by NASA that in some cases are precursors to sensors planned for future NASA satellite missions.HAMSR, an advanced water vapor sensor, analyzes the heat radiation emitted by oxygen and water molecules in the atmosphere to determine their density and temperature. The instrument operates at microwave frequencies that can penetrate clouds, enabling it to determine temperature, humidity and cloud structure under all weather conditions. This capability is critical for studying atmospheric processes associated with bad weather, like the conditions present during hurricanes.For more information, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
March 25, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120325173206.htm | Extreme weather of last decade part of larger pattern linked to global warming | The past decade has been one of unprecedented weather extremes. Scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany argue that the high incidence of extremes is not merely accidental. From the many single events a pattern emerges. At least for extreme rainfall and heat waves the link with human-caused global warming is clear, the scientists show in a new analysis of scientific evidence in the journal | In 2011 alone, the US was hit by 14 extreme weather events which caused damages exceeding one billion dollars each -- in several states the months of January to October were the wettest ever recorded. Japan also registered record rainfalls, while the Yangtze river basin in China suffered a record drought. Similar record-breaking events occurred also in previous years. In 2010, Western Russia experienced the hottest summer in centuries, while in Pakistan and Australia record-breaking amounts of rain fell. 2003 saw Europe´s hottest summer in at least half a millennium. And in 2002, the weather station of Zinnwald-Georgenfeld measured more rain in one day than ever before recorded anywhere in Germany -- what followed was the worst flooding of the Elbe river for centuries."The question is whether these weather extremes are coincidental or a result of climate change," says Dim Coumou, lead author of the article. "Global warming can generally not be proven to cause individual extreme events -- but in the sum of events the link to climate change becomes clear." This is what his analysis of data and published studies shows. "It is not a question of yes or no, but a question of probabilities," Coumou explains. The recent high incidence of weather records is no longer normal, he says."It´s like a game with loaded dice," says Coumou. "A six can appear every now and then, and you never know when it happens. But now it appears much more often, because we have changed the dice." The past week illustrates this: between March 13th and 19th alone, historical heat records were exceeded in more than a thousand places in North America.The scientists base their analysis on three pillars: basic physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations. Elementary physical principles already suggest that a warming of the atmosphere leads to more extremes. For example, warm air can hold more moisture until it rains out. Secondly, clear statistical trends can be found in temperature and precipitation data, the scientists explain. And thirdly, detailed computer simulations also confirm the relation between warming and records in both temperature and precipitation.With warmer ocean temperatures, tropical storms -- called typhoons or hurricanes, depending on the region -- should increase in intensity but not in number, according to the current state of knowledge. In the past decade, several record-breaking storms occurred, for example hurricane Wilma in 2004. But the dependencies are complex and not yet fully understood. The observed strong increase in the intensity of tropical storms in the North Atlantic between 1980 and 2005, for example, could be caused not just by surface warming but by a cooling of the upper atmosphere. Furthermore, there are questions about the precision and reliability of historic storm data.Overall, cold extremes decrease with global warming, the scientists found. But this does not compensate for the increase in heat extremes."Single weather extremes are often related to regional processes, like a blocking high pressure system or natural phenomena like El Niño," says Stefan Rahmstorf, co-author of the article and chair of the Earth System Analysis department at PIK. "These are complex processes that we are investigating further. But now these processes unfold against the background of climatic warming. That can turn an extreme event into a record-breaking event." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
March 16, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120316185729.htm | NASA sees cyclone Lua strengthening for March 17 landfall | Northern Australia's Pilbara coast is under warnings, alerts and watches as powerful Cyclone Lua nears for a landfall. NASA's Aqua satellite has been providing infrared, visible and microwave data on Lua that have shown forecasters the storm is strengthening on its approach to land. | Two of the most recent infrared images of Cyclone Lua were captured from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument onboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The AIRS instrument captured infrared images of Cyclone Lua on March 15 at 1741 UTC and March 16 at 0553 UTC. The later image appeared to show that Lau was becoming more organized and more compact, signs that the storm was strengthening. Bands of thunderstorms are also wrapping into the low-level center, another sign of strengthening. Over that time period the storm had grown from a tropical storm to a cyclone. Aqua captured an infrared image of the storm's cloud top temperatures using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument. AIRS data showed that the coldest (purple) cloud top temperatures (colder than -63F/-52.7C).The list of warnings, watches and alerts are numerous. A Cyclone Warning is current for coastal areas from Cape Leveque to Dampier, including Port Hedland, Karratha, Dampier and Broome, as well as inland parts of the eastern Pilbara and far western Kimberley. A Cyclone Watch is current for the central and eastern inland Pilbara including Telfer, Newman and Paraburdoo, the western inland Kimberley, the eastern Gascoyne including Meekatharra, and the far western Interior.Yellow and Blue Alerts are also in effect. A Yellow Alert is in effect for residents between Broome and Whim Creek including Bidyadanga, Port Hedland, South Hedland, Warralong, Yande Yarra, Marble Bar and adjacent pastoral and mining leases. A Blue Alert is in effect for residents in coastal communities between Whim Creek and Dampier including Karratha, Dampier, Roebourne, Wickham and Point Samson as well as inland communities including Nullagine, Newman and Jigalong and surrounding pastoral and mining leases.ABC Online Melboure reports that flights have been canceled and roads have been closed. Officials have also closed Karijini National Park because of flash flooding risk.On March 16, 2012 at 0900 UTC (5 a.m. EST), Tropical cyclone Lua's maximum sustained winds were near 75 knots (86 mph/139 kph). Cyclone-force winds extended out 30 nautical miles (34.5 miles/55.5 km) from the center, while tropical storm-force winds extended out to 160 nautical miles (184 miles/296.3 km) from the center.Lua was located near 16.5 South and 116.6 East, about 260 miles north-northwest of Port Hedland, Australia. Lua was moving to the east-southeast at 10 knots (11.5 mph/18.5 kph).Lua is forecast to strengthen to 90 knots (103.6 mph/166.7 kph) before making landfall around midday (local time) on March 17 just north of Port Hedland. By March 19, Lua is expected to dissipate in central or southern Western Australia. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology is issuing updates every three hours. To see the updates, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
February 23, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120223133216.htm | 'Storm of the century' may become 'storm of the decade' | As the Earth's climate changes, the worst inundations from hurricanes and tropical storms could become far more common in low-lying coastal areas, a new study suggests. Researchers from Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that regions such as the New York City metropolitan area that currently experience a disastrous flood every century could instead become submerged every one or two decades. | The researchers report in the journal Nature Climate Change that projected increases in sea level and storm intensity brought on by climate change would make devastating storm surges -- the deadly and destructive mass of water pushed inland by large storms -- more frequent. Using various global climate models, the team developed a simulation tool that can predict the severity of future flooding an area can expect.The researchers used New York City as a test case and found that with fiercer storms and a 3-foot rise in sea level due to climate change, "100-year floods" -- a depth of roughly 5.7 feet above tide level that occurs roughly once a century -- could more likely occur every three to 20 years. What today are New York City's "500-year floods" -- or waters that reach more than 9 feet deep -- could, with climate change, occur every 25 to 240 years, the researchers wrote.The research is not only the first to examine the future intensity of storm surges, but also to offer a tool for estimating an area's vulnerability, said co-author Michael Oppenheimer, the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Geosciences and International Affairs at Princeton."Coastal managers in cities like New York make daily decisions about costly infrastructure that would be affected by such storms. They need a reliable indicator of the risk," he said."Our modeling approach is designed as a key step in this direction," Oppenheimer said. "As the world warms, risks will increase across a variety of fronts, and the threat to coastal infrastructure in the face of an already-rising sea level and potentially stronger hurricanes could be one of the most costly unless we are able to anticipate and reduce vulnerability."Lead author Ning Lin, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, said that knowing the frequency of storm surges may help urban and coastal planners design seawalls and other protective structures. Lin, who received her Ph.D. from Princeton in 2010, began the project at Princeton then continued it at MIT; the current report is based on her work at MIT."When you design your buildings or dams or structures on the coast, you have to know how high your seawall has to be," said Lin, noting that Manhattan's seawalls now stand a mere 5 feet high. "You have to decide whether to build a seawall to prevent being flooded every 20 years."Lin and Oppenheimer worked with study co-authors Kerry Emanuel, an MIT atmospheric science professor, and Erik Vanmarcke, a Princeton professor of civil and environmental engineering. Lin, Vanmarcke and Emanuel also co-wrote a 2010 report on the project published in the Journal of Geophysical Research that was based on Lin's work at Princeton.Carol Friedland, an assistant professor of construction management and industrial engineering at Louisiana State University, sees the latest results as a useful tool to inform coastal design -- particularly, she notes, as most buildings are designed with a 60- to 120-year "usable lifespan.""The physical damage and economic loss that result from storm surge can be devastating to individuals, businesses, infrastructure and communities," Friedland said. "For current coastal community planning and design projects, it is essential that the effects of climate change be included in storm-surge predictions."The researchers ran a total of 45,000 storm simulations for the New York City region under two scenarios: current climate conditions from 1981 to 2000 based on observed data and four global climate models; and projected climate conditions for the years 2081 to 2100 based on the four climate models, as well as future carbon dioxide output as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Oppenheimer is a longtime participant in the IPCC.Storms in the simulations occurred within a 125-mile (200-kilometer) radius of the Battery, at the southern tip of Manhattan, and generated a maximum wind speed of at least 50 miles per hour. Hurricanes are classified as having a maximum wind speed of at least 74 miles per hour.Once the researchers simulated storms in the region, they then simulated the resulting storm surges using three different methods, including one used by the National Hurricane Center (NHC). In the days or hours before a hurricane hits land, the NHC uses a storm-surge model to predict the risk and extent of flooding from the impending storm. Such models, however, have not been used to evaluate multiple simulated storms under a scenario of climate change.Again, the group compared results from multiple methods: one from the NHC that simulates storm surges quickly, though coarsely; another method that generates more accurate storm surges, though more slowly; and a method in between, developed by Lin and her colleagues, that estimates relatively accurate surge floods, relatively quickly.The researchers found that the frequency of massive storm surges would go up in proportion to an increase in more violent storms and a rise in sea level, the researchers reported. They noted that climate models predict that the sea level around New York City could rise by 1.5 to nearly 5 feet by the end of the 21st century.Flooding was amplified by the storm's wind direction and proximity to the city. The worst simulated flood, a 15.5-foot storm surge at Manhattan's Battery, stemmed from a high-intensity storm moving northeast and very close to the city. On the other hand, a weaker but larger northwest-bound storm that was further from the city resulted in floodwater nearly 15 feet deep as its strongest winds pushed water toward the Battery.Floods of this magnitude outstrip the most devastating storm surges in the city's recorded history, Lin said. The worst accompanied the 1821 Norfolk and Long Island hurricane, which packed winds of 135 miles per hour and is one of only four hurricanes known to have made landfall in New York City since pre-Columbian times."The highest [surge flood] was 3.2 meters [10.4 feet], and this happened in 1821," Lin said. "That's the highest water level observed in New York City's history, which is like a present 500-year event."The study was published online Feb. 14 by the journal | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
February 1, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120201105227.htm | Tropical cyclones to cause greater damage, researchers predict | Tropical cyclones will cause $109 billion in damages by 2100, according to Yale and MIT researchers in a paper published in | That figure represents an increased vulnerability from population and especially economic growth, as well as the effects of climate change. Greater vulnerability to cyclones is expected to increase global tropical damage to $56 billion by 2100 -- double the current damage -- from the current rate of $26 billion per year if the present climate remains stable.Climate change is predicted to add another $53 billion of damages. The damage caused by climate change is equal to 0.01 percent of GDP in 2100.The United States and China will be hardest hit, incurring $25 billion and $15 billion of the additional damages from climate change, respectively, amounting to 75 percent of the global damages caused by climate change. Small islands, especially in the Caribbean, will also be hit hard, suffering the highest damages per unit of GDP.The research reveals that more intense storms will become more frequent with climate change. "The biggest storms cause most of the damage," said Robert Mendelsohn, the lead economist on the project. "With the present climate, almost 93 percent of tropical cyclone damage is caused by only 10 percent of the storms. Warming will increase the frequency of these high-intensity storms at least in the North Pacific and North Atlantic Ocean basins, causing most of the increase in damage."The authors based their estimates on a future global population of 9 billion and an annual increase of approximately 3 percent in gross world product until 2100. "More people making a lot more income will put more capital in harm's way," he said.Tropical cyclones today cause $26 billion in global damages, which is 4 percent of gross world product. North America and East Asia account for 88 percent of these damages, because these regions have powerful storms and well-developed coastlines.The future economic damage from tropical cyclones will be less than $1 billion a year in Europe and South America because there are few storms there, and the damage in Africa will be low because, Mendelsohn said, there is "relatively little in harm's way." Damages in Asia and Central America are expected to grow rapidly in concert with high economic growth. The Caribbean-Central America region will have the highest damage per unit of gross domestic product -- 37 percent."When you calculate damages as a fraction of GDP, island nations are hit disproportionately hard," he said.The tropical cyclone model is used in conjunction with climate models to predict how the frequency, intensity and location of tropical cyclones change in the seven ocean basins of the world. The paths of 17,000 synthetic storms are followed until they strike land. The authors used historical data to estimate the damages caused by the intensity of each cyclone and what was in harm's way. The paper revealed that minimum barometric pressure predicts damages more accurately than maximum wind speed. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
January 27, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120127174844.htm | NASA sees a weakening Cyclone Funso's 'closed eye' | Powerful Cyclone Funso's eye has been clear in NASA satellite imagery over the last several days until NASA's Aqua satellite noticed it had "closed" and become filled with high clouds on January 27. | NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Funso on January 27 at 0730 UTC (2:30 a.m. EST). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured a true color image of the storm that showed Funso's eye has now filled with clouds and appears ragged. Despite being filled with high clouds, the eye appears on multi-spectral satellite imagery to be 30 miles (48.3 km) in diameter. The MODIS image showed that Funso was moving south past the southern end of Madagascar to the east.The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite had a good view of powerful tropical cyclone Funso on January 26, 2012 at 1341 UTC (8:41 a.m. EST). TRMM data showed that Funso had moderate to heavy rainfall around the center and in bands of thunderstorms north of the center of circulation. The heavy rain was falling at a rate of 2 inches (50 mm) per hour.On January 27 at 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST), Funso's maximum sustained winds were near 105 knots (120.8 mph/194.5 kph). The storm was over 440 miles (708 km) in diameter as it moved south-southeast at 4 knots (4.6 mph/7.4 kph) through the southern end of the Mozambique Channel. Funso's center was located about 385 nautical (443 miles/713 km) miles east of Maputo, Mozambique, near 25.9 South and 39.7 East.Funso is weakening more as it moves to the south-southeast and will encounter stronger wind shear and cooler waters, both of which will sap the energy from the cyclone more quickly. Funso is expected to become extra-tropical over the weekend of January 28 and 29, 2012 in the open waters of the Southern Indian Ocean. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
January 27, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120127174842.htm | NASA eyes cyclone Iggy's threat to western Australia | NASA satellites are providing valuable data to forecasters as Tropical Cyclone Iggy nears Western Australia. NASA's Aqua satellite provided visible and infrared data on Iggy, observing colder cloud tops and strengthening storm. Iggy has already triggered warnings and watches along coastal areas. | The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM) has issued a Cyclone Warning for coastal areas from Mardie to Ningaloo including Exmouth and Onslow. ABM has also issued a Cyclone Watch east to Port Hedland and south to Coral Bay. In addition, a Blue Alert has been posted for "People in or near coastal and island communities between Mardie and Coral Bay including the communities of Mardie, Onslow, Exmouth and Coral Bay need to prepare for cyclonic weather."The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a true color image of Tropical Storm Iggy on January 27 at 0655 UTC (2:30 a.m. EST), and showed Iggy as a rounded area of clouds with no visible eye. Animated infrared satellite imagery showed a slight cooling of cloud tops in Iggy's main band of thunderstorms, located west of the center. Dropping cloud-top temperatures mean that the strength in the storm is increasing and pushing those cloud tops higher in the atmosphere, where it is colder. Higher cloud tops mean stronger thunderstorms within the tropical cyclone.At 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST) on January 27, Iggy's maximum sustained winds were near 55 knots (63 mph/102 kph). Iggy's tropical-storm-force-winds extend 115 nautical miles (132 miles/213 km) from the center. Iggy is about 230 nm (~265 miles/426 km) in diameter. Iggy was centered about 270 nautical miles (~311 miles/500 km) northwest of Learmouth, Australia, near 19.1 South latitude and 110.7 East longitude. Iggy is moving slowly to the south-southeast, toward Western Australia's Pilbara coastline.ABM classified Iggy as a "Category two" cyclone, with wind gusts of 130 kph (~81 mph). ABM forecasters expect Iggy to become a category three storm on January 28. For updates on tropical cyclone warnings from the ABM, visit: Because of low wind shear and warm waters, Iggy is expected to continue strengthening on its approach to the Australian coastline. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast as of January 27 takes the center of Iggy's center very close to Learmouth on January 30 and 31 before turning to the southwest and heading back to sea. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
January 26, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120126224520.htm | NASA satellites see cyclone Funso exiting Mozambique Channel | Powerful Cyclone Funso is now beginning to exit the Mozambique Channel, and NASA's Aqua satellite captured a stunning image of the storm that shows the depth and extent of it. | NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Funso on January 26 at 1110 UTC (6:10 a.m. EST). The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, better known as the MODIS instrument captured a true color image of the storm that showed a 25 nautical-mile-wide (29 miles/~46 km) eye, and clouds swirling down into it. The outer extent of Funso's clouds skirted Madagascar to the east, and Mozambique to the west.At 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST) on January 26, Funso's maximum sustained winds were down to 100 knots (115 mph/185 kph). It was located about 277 nautical miles (319 miles/513 km) east-northeast of Maputo, Mozambique. Its center was pinpointed near 24.0 South latitude and 39.2 East longitude. It was moving to the south-southeast near 4 knots (4.6 mph/7.4 kph). The storm is over 400 nautical miles (460 miles/~741 km) in diameter, which is the extent of tropical-storm-force winds.Funso is expected to maintain cyclone strength over the next couple of days as it moves out of the Mozambique Channel and into the open waters of the Southern Indian Ocean, where it will begin to weaken. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
January 26, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120126224518.htm | NASA infrared satellite instrument sees tropical storm Iggy growing in strength | The AIRS infrared instrument that flies on NASA's Aqua satellite has been providing forecasters with the cloud top temperatures in the Southern Indian Ocean's ninth tropical cyclone, which has officially been renamed Iggy. AIRS data showed that the area of strong thunderstorms around Iggy's center has expanded in area over the last day. | The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument provided an infrared snapshot of Iggy's cloud top temperatures on January 26, 2012 at 0611 UTC (1:11 a.m. EST). The AIRS image showed a large and rounded area of high, cold clouds, around the entire center of circulation. The data also showed that strongest convection (rapidly rising air that condenses and forms the thunderstorms that make up the cyclone) is located slightly to the west of the center, because of easterly wind shear. The temperatures of those high cloud tops were colder than -63 Fahrenheit (-51.7 Celsius), which is a threshold scientists use to identify strong thunderstorms with heavy rainfall. This is an indication that Iggy will continue to strengthen.The AIRS image also showed clouds to the southeast of Iggy that are associated with another low pressure area. That area of disturbed weather is over land and located south-southwest of Darwin.Iggy is currently located in the Southern Indian Ocean, northwest of Western Australia. At 1500 UTC (10 a.m. EST), Tropical Cyclone Iggy was about 430 nautical miles (~495 miles/~796 km) northwest of Learmonth, Australia, near 16.8 South and 109.0 East. It was moving slowly to the southeast at 5 knots (~6 mph/~9 kph). Iggy's maximum sustained winds are near 45 knots (~52 mph/~83 kph) and it is classified as a tropical storm. Those tropical-storm-force winds extend out to 110 miles (177 km) from the center.Iggy's approach has prompted the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to issue a cyclone and flood watch. Iggy is moving toward the Pilbara coast. The coastal communities between Whim Creek and Coral Bay will likely experience gusty winds and heavy rainfall on January 27 and 28. Rough surf is also expected along coastal areas including Christmas Island, the Kimberley and Pilbara coasts.Iggy is forecast to continue strengthening as it moves southeast toward Western Australia. Sea surface temperatures along track are 28 to 29 degrees Celsius (~82 to ~84 Fahrenheit), which the Joint Typhoon Warning Center says is supportive of further development. It is expected to reach cyclone strength before moving to the south. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
January 26, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120126092542.htm | Hurricane Katrina survivors struggle with mental health years later | Survivors of Hurricane Katrina have struggled with poor mental health for years after the storm, according to a new study of low-income mothers in the New Orleans area. | The study's lead author, Christina Paxson of Princeton University, said that the results were a departure from other surveys both in the design and the results. The researchers were able to collect data on the participants before Katrina and nearly five years after the August 2005 storm, finding a persistence of poor mental health and gaining insights into how different types of hurricane-related stressors affect mental health."On average, people were not back to baseline mental health and they were showing pretty high levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms. There aren't many studies that trace people for this long, but the very few that there are suggest faster recovery than what we're finding here," said Paxson, who is Princeton's Hughes-Rogers Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. "I think the lesson for treatment of mental health conditions is don't think it's over after a year. It isn't."In addition to helping mental health professionals aid survivors of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters, the research may guide policymakers in addressing areas that had a significant impact on the women in the study, such as home damage and rebuilding.The paper appears in the January issue of the journal The project began in 2003 as a study of low-income adults enrolled in community college around the country, including three sites in New Orleans. The initial questionnaire contained questions about education, income, families and health. After Hurricane Katrina, some of the researchers decided to try to continue to track the New Orleans-based participants."I realized right away that the kinds of information we had on mental and physical health were very rare in disaster studies," Waters said. "Researchers never know if people are suffering because of the disaster or if they had underlying conditions that would have led to depression or poor health even before the disaster hit."The sample size in the study was made up of 532 low-income mothers, most of whom were African American and whose average age was 26. They were interviewed in two follow-up surveys -- tracked down largely through their unchanged cellphone numbers, though they were spread across 23 states -- about 11 months and nearly five years after the storm.Due to the makeup of the sample, Paxson cautioned that the study's results cannot be assumed to apply to the population as a whole, but they shed light on natural disasters' effects on a particularly vulnerable group.The surveys helped rate the women on two signs of poor mental health: psychological distress and post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). Researchers measured psychological distress using a series of questions (also in the initial questionnaire) typically used to screen for anxiety and mood disorders, asking about feelings such as sadness, hopelessness and nervousness experienced over the last 30 days. They measured PTSS using a test used to identify individuals at a high risk of meeting the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder; for example, the women in the study were asked how often they thought about the hurricane in the last seven days and whether they had thoughts about the storm that they could not suppress.The researchers found that even after four years, about 33 percent of the participants still had PTSS, and 30 percent had psychological distress. Though levels for both conditions had declined from the first follow-up 11 months after the hurricane, they were not back to pre-hurricane levels.The researchers had also interviewed the study participants about the types of stressors they had experienced during the storm: home damage, traumatic experiences the week of the hurricane (such as being in danger or lacking food, water or necessary medical care), or death of a friend or relative.Paxson and her collaborators found that these stressors played a role in whether the participants suffered from psychological distress or PTSS, or both. For the most part, the hurricane stressors, especially home damage, were associated with the risk of chronic, long-term PTSS alone or in combination with psychological distress."I think Katrina might be different from a lot of natural disasters in the sense that it completely upended most people's lives," Paxson said. "About two-thirds of the sample is back in the New Orleans area, but almost nobody lives in their old home. So they're living in new communities. They've been disrupted from their friends and their families. The whole fabric of their lives has really been changed."Demographer Narayan Sastry, a research professor in the Population Studies Center and Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan, said that the study makes an important contribution toward understanding the medium- to long-term effects of Katrina on mental health."The most significant aspect was its study of long-term outcomes that were assessed at multiple points in time, including prior to the hurricane -- a unique feature of this study," said Sastry, who is familiar with the study but was not involved in it. "The results are important not just for designing policies and programs to help address any ongoing mental health problems being experienced by survivors of Hurricane Katrina, but also in devising the best response to help people who are affected by natural disasters in the future."Sastry added that the study found very similar levels of psychological distress as his work on a broader, representative sample of the pre-hurricane population of New Orleans.Paxson and her collaborators plan to further examine the data from their surveys, and to continue tracking the women in the sample. Some avenues for further study include looking at how genetics may have a played a role in the mental health responses, examining the hurricane's effects on physical health, and tracking the educational and mental health outcomes of the children of the women in the sample. They also plan to publish a book that combines the survey results with in-depth interviews with some of the women.This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation and Princeton's Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
January 25, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120125163410.htm | Major Tropical Cyclone Funso analyzed by 2 NASA satellites | Tropical Cyclone Funso is now a dangerous Category 4 cyclone in the Mozambique Channel, moving southward between Mozambique on the African mainland and the island nation of Madagascar. As Funso became a major cyclone two NASA satellites were providing forecasters with valuable storm information. | Two instruments aboard NASA's Aqua satellite and instruments aboard NASA and JAXA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite provided cloud extent, cloud temperature, rainfall rates, and a look at the eye of the storm.On Jan. 25 at 7:40 UTC (2:40 a.m. EST), the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Funso. The image revealed the cloud cover extends from Mozambique on the African mainland, east to the coast of the island nation of Madagascar. MODIS imagery also revealed a clear 11 mile-wide eye.When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Cyclone Funso the day before, January 24 at 11:17 UTC (6:17 a.m. EST) the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument measured the cloud top temperatures. Thunderstorm cloud tops around the entire center of circulation colder than -63 Fahrenheit (-52.7 Celsius) indicating strong storms, dropping heavy rainfall.The TRMM satellite also had a good view of powerful tropical cyclone Funso battering the Mozambique coast when it flew over on January 24, 2012 at 2204 UTC (5:04 p.m. EST). TRMM data showed that Funso was dropping moderate to heavy rainfall in bands covering the Mozambique Channel from eastern Mozambique to western Madagascar.On January 25, 2012 at 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST), Major Tropical Cyclone Funso had maximum sustained winds of 120 knots (138 mph/222 kph). Hurricane-force winds extend out 40 miles (64 km) from the center. It was located near 22.7 South and 38.7 East, about 400 nautical miles (460 miles/741 kmh) northeast of Maputo, Mozambique. It was moving to the south-southwest at 4 knots (~4.6 mph/7.4 kph). Funso is generating maximum significant waves 32 feet (9.7 meters) high.Cyclone Funso continues to track the over open waters of the southern Mozambique Channel and forecasts take it out into the Southern Indian Ocean over the next three days without any danger of a direct landfall. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
January 20, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120119134019.htm | Toward twister forecasting: Scientists make progress in assessing tornado seasons | Meteorologists can see a busy hurricane season brewing months ahead, but until now there has been no such crystal ball for tornadoes, which are much smaller and more volatile. This information gap took on new urgency after tornadoes in 2011 killed more than 550 people, more than in the previous 10 years combined, including a devastating outbreak in April that racked up $5 billion in insured losses. Now, a new study of short-term climate trends offers the first framework for predicting tornado activity up to a month out with current technology, and possibly further out as climate models improve, giving communities a chance to plan. | The study may also eventually open a window on the question of whether tornadoes are growing more frequent due to long-term climate warming."Understanding how climate shapes tornado activity makes forecasts and projections possible and allows us to look into the past and understand what happened," said lead author Michael Tippett, a climate scientist at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI).Packing winds of up to 300 miles per hour, tornadoes descend when warm, moist air collides with cold, dry air, creating a vortex as the two masses move around each other. The U.S. Midwest is the twister capital of the world, where cold air blowing east from the Rockies habitually hits tropical air moving north from the Gulf of Mexico. Tornadoes appear to be growing more frequent as climate warms, but it is uncertain whether there is a connection; they are small and hard to count, and recently improved reporting may also explain the increase.Lack of an accurate long-term tornado record makes it hard to know the truth, and has also hampered scientists' ability to relate tornadoes to cyclical weather patterns that could aid in forecasting. While individual hurricanes can be spotted days in advance, tornadoes appear with much less warning. A tornado watch typically gives only a few hours' notice that dangerous conditions are brewing, while warning of an actual tornado bearing down may give people just a few minutes to get out of the way.Tippett, a seasonal forecasting expert, had already built statistical models to understand how climate change might affect hurricanes by adding more heat and moisture to the air. But applying the same methods to something as tiny and complicated as a twister is trickier, said study coauthor Adam Sobel, an atmospheric scientist with joint appointments at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and School of Engineering and Applied Science. "A tornado is not a lot bigger than the house it has just destroyed," he said. "It's a small thing and short-lived."Combing through 30 years of data, Tippett and his colleagues began looking for patterns linking climate and tornadoes. By comparing average atmospheric conditions with average monthly tornado counts in regions across the United States, they identified two parameters that seemed closely associated with monthly tornado activity: rain associated with strong updrafts; and helicity, which measures the tendency of winds to spin those updrafts.They then looked to see if they could "predict" the tornado activity of individual months from 1979 to 2010 from a simple index based on each month's average wind and rain parameters. The index correlated significantly with the observed numbers of tornadoes in all months except September and October. Moreover, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) system for making seasonal forecasts, known as the Climate Forecast System (CFS), was able to use the index to forecast monthly tornado activity with some success up to a month in advance. This success, especially notable in June, is the first evidence for the predictability of monthly tornado activity.Harold Brooks, a NOAA tornado expert not involved in the study said the forecast technique worked where others have failed because the CFS produced higher resolution results. "The real breakthrough is that CFS is skillful enough at the right scale," he said.With greater lead time, communities and relief agencies could prepare, he said. "It's not like the hurricane problem where we can tell people to evacuate. But if I'm a state emergency manager I might be really interested in knowing at the end of March that by the end of April we could have a big problem. You could be better prepared with generators and supplies."Tippett said the next steps are to improve the index's reliability in the fall; to better understand why the forecasts work; and to apply the index to projections of future climate. "Before you can use an index to diagnose future climate, you have to be confident that it explains the observed variability," he said.Suzana Camargo, a climate and weather researcher at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, also coauthored the study, which appears this week in the journal | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
January 7, 2012 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120106110212.htm | Multi-year prediction of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26.5 °N possible | Climate scientists with Dr. Daniela Matei and Prof. Dr. Jochem Marotzke from the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI-M) and Prof. Dr. Johanna Baehr from Hamburg University's Cluster of Excellence „CliSAP" have now shown for the first time that the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation at 26.5 °N can be skillfully predicted for up to four years. | Their results have been recently published in The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) -- colloquially known as "Gulf Stream" -- transports warm surface waters into the high latitudes, where they cool, sink and return southwards at depth as cold North Atlantic Deep Water. Variations in AMOC can significantly affect the northward ocean heat transport and therefore the European and North Atlantic climate. Through its influence on sea surface temperature (SST), AMOC can further impact climate phenomena such as Sahel droughts or the frequency of Atlantic hurricanes. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to be able to predict these climate variations on a time horizon from years to decades. Multi-year climate predictions have so far been limited to predicting surface temperature variations and hurricane frequency, but have not addressed the prediction of any dynamical quantity such as the AMOC.In the near term (inter-annual to decadal timescales), climate variations are influenced by both anthropogenic forcing and natural variability. This is why the near-term climate prediction models must be started ("initialized") from the present state of the ocean.The skill of any prediction system is assessed retrospectively, by performing the so-called "hindcast" or "retrospective forecast" and comparing them with observations. In the present study, ensemble hindcasts have been performed starting in January of each year between 2004 and 2007. The AMOC strength in the hindcasts closely follows the observations for up to four years.The results of the coupled atmosphere-ocean-model ECHAM5/MPI-OM of the MPI-M have been evaluated against the only continuous available observations of the AMOC over the period April 2004 to March 2009. The AMOC observations were and will be performed in the RAPID-MOC project.The close agreement between the hindcasts and the observations has motivated Dr. Daniela Matei and her colleagues to also produce AMOC forecasts (more details on the method in the original publication). An ensemble of nine forecasts spanning 10 years has been constructed for each of the Januaries from 2008 to 2011. For all start years the ensemble mean forecasts until 2014 indicate a generally stable AMOC. However, the forecast initialized in January 2010 shows a pronounced minimum in March 2010. This brief minimum was induced by an extremely negative NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) during the winter 2009/2010.According to the findings of the working group, the AMOC predictive skill arises predominantly from the basin-wide upper-mid-ocean geostrophic transport. The results of the study demonstrate that the skill of climate prediction arises not only from the large ocean thermal inertia, but also from the long timescales of internal ocean dynamics.The work was supported by the BMBF „Nordatlantik II" project and the Cluster of Excellence "CliSAP" (Integrated Climate System Analysis and Prediction) of the University of Hamburg. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,012 |
December 26, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111208121016.htm | Link between earthquakes and tropical cyclones: New study may help scientists identify regions at high risk for earthquakes | A groundbreaking study led by University of Miami (UM) scientist Shimon Wdowinski shows that earthquakes, including the recent 2010 temblors in Haiti and Taiwan, may be triggered by tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons), according to a presentation of the findings at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco. | "Very wet rain events are the trigger," said Wdowinski, associate research professor of marine geology and geophysics at the UM Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. "The heavy rain induces thousands of landslides and severe erosion, which removes ground material from the Earth's surface, releasing the stress load and encouraging movement along faults."Wdowinski and a colleague from Florida International University analyzed data from quakes magnitude-6 and above in Taiwan and Haiti and found a strong temporal relationship between the two natural hazards, where large earthquakes occurred within four years after a very wet tropical cyclone season.During the last 50 years three very wet tropical cyclone events -- Typhoons Morakot, Herb and Flossie -- were followed within four years by major earthquakes in Taiwan's mountainous regions. The 2009 Morakot typhoon was followed by a M-6.2 in 2009 and M-6.4 in 2010. The 1996 Typhoon Herb was followed by M-6.2 in 1998 and M-7.6 in 1999 and the 1969 Typhoon Flossie was followed by a M-6.2 in 1972.The 2010 M-7 earthquake in Haiti occurred in the mountainous region one-and-a-half years after two hurricanes and two tropical storms drenched the island nation within 25 days.The researchers suggest that rain-induced landslides and excess rain carries eroded material downstream. As a result the surface load above the fault is lessened."The reduced load unclamp the faults, which can promote an earthquake," said Wdowinski.Fractures in Earth's bedrock from the movement of tectonic plates, known as faults, build up stress as they attempt to slide past each other, periodically releasing the stress in the form of an earthquake.According to the scientists, this earthquake-triggering mechanism is only viable on inclined faults, where the rupture by these faults has a significant vertical movement.Wdowinski also shows a trend in the tropical cyclone-earthquake pattern exists in M-5 and above earthquakes. The researchers plan to analyze patterns in other seismically active mountainous regions -- such as the Philippines and Japan -- that are subjected to tropical cyclones activity. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
December 7, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111207001334.htm | NASA's TRMM satellite sees the power in Tropical Storm Alenga | The first tropical storm of the Southern Indian Ocean season has been renamed from Tropical Storm 01S to Tropical Storm Alenga as it continues to strengthen. NASA's TRMM satellite was able to capture a look at the rainfall rates and cloud heights within Alenga recently. | On December 4, 2011 at 1210 UTC (7:10 a.m. EST) the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite had a look at the first tropical storm forming in the Indian Ocean this season. Tropical cyclones normally form in this area between November 15 and April 30 so this one was a little overdue.The TRMM satellite is managed by both NASA and the Japanese Space Agency, and obtains rainfall measurements in the tropics. TRMM provided a "top down" rainfall analysis of Tropical Storm Alenga on Dec. 4 at 12:10 UTC (7:10 a.m. EST) using the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) overlaid on an enhanced infrared image from Visible and InfraRed Scanner (VIRS) data. This analysis was done at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and showed that very heavy rainfall of over 50 mm (~2 inches) per hour was occurring in the forming tropical cyclone near the center of its circulation.Hal Pierce of NASA's TRMM Team at NASA Goddard made the December 4 images from TRMM Data. Pierce said, "TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) data is depicted in a 3-D image that revealed a few powerful storms near the storm's center were pushing up to heights of over 12 km (~7.45 miles). The release of energy within these tall towers are often a sign that a storm is intensifying."On Dec. 6 at 4 a.m. EST (0900 UTC), Alenga's maximum sustained winds were near 45 knots (52 mph/83 kmh). Alenga was located in the Southern Indian Ocean's open waters 560 nautical miles west of the Cocos Islands, near 12.8 South latitude and 87.5 East longitude. Alenga was moving to the southwest near 2 knots (3 mph/4 kmh).Infrared satellite imagery Dec. 6 showed that the showers and thunderstorms within Alenga are decreasing, and the bands of thunderstorms around its center are weakening. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that this weakening is only temporary as Alenga is forecast to regain strengthen before weakening again two days from now as it becomes an extra-tropical storm.As Alenga continues to head southeast, it is moving into a hostile environment, where wind shear will increase and batter the tropical cyclone, weakening it. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
December 5, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111205181919.htm | NASA sees birth of first Southern Indian Ocean season tropical storm | The Southern Indian Ocean cyclone season is off and running and NASA's Aqua satellite saw the birth of Tropical Cyclone 01S. | Tropical Cyclone 01S (TC01S) formed Dec. 5, 2011. TC01S has maximum sustained winds near 55 knots (63 mph/102 kmh) and is rapidly consolidating and organizing, so strengthening is forecast. At 0900 UTC (4 a.m. EST) on Dec. 5, TC01S was located about 545 nautical miles west of the Cocos Islands near 12.2 South and 87.0 East. It was moving to the west at 7 knots 8 mph/13 kmh).The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite captured an image of Tropical Cyclone 01S on Dec. 5 at 08:18 UTC (3:18 a.m. EST) in the Southern Indian Ocean. Strong thunderstorms are visible around the center as they cast shadows on the lower surrounding clouds.Microwave satellite instruments showed an eye developing in TC01S. There is also tightly curved banding of thunderstorms around the low-level center. T01S has intensified rapidly over the first 12 hours of its existence. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasters expect TC01S to strengthen to hurricane-force over the next two days and track to the southeast, staying at sea. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
November 21, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111118133048.htm | More accurate tropical cyclone prediction model developed | Researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory Marine Meteorology Division (MMD), Monterey, Calif., have developed the Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System Tropical Cyclone (COAMPS-TC™) model, achieving a significant research milestone in predictions of tropical cyclone intensity and structure. | While the predictions of the paths or tracks of hurricanes, more generally referred to as tropical cyclones (TC), have steadily improved over the last few decades, improvements in the predictions of storm intensity have proven much more difficult."Over the past two years, the COAMPS-TC model has shown to be the most accurate emerging research model for predicting tropical cyclone intensity," said Dr. Jim Doyle, research meteorologist, NRL Monterey. "There is no better example of these difficult challenges than the intensity predictions for Hurricane Irene this past August."Producing very accurate intensity predictions during a real-time experimental demonstration of Hurricane Irene, COAMPS-TC intensity errors were six knots on average for a series of three-day forecasts, a clear improvement over the official National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast and other operational models that ranged from 20-30 knots.The successful predictions have demonstrated that Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models can outperform operational statistical-dynamic models that are based on climatology and previous behavior. It is further believed that NWP models, which explicitly predict the location, dynamics and intensity of a storm, will eventually provide the most promising approach to achieve accurate TC intensity and structure prediction.Advancing further methodologies used for vortex initialization, data assimilation and representation of physical processes, COAMPS-TC is expected to become fully-operational in 2013 at the Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) in Monterey. Considerable advancements have been made to several components of the modeling system including the data assimilation of conventional and special TC synthetic observations, vortex initialization, and representation of key TC physical processes such as air-sea fluxes, clouds and convection.The COAMPS-TC project will potentially signal a paradigm shift in TC forecasting and is already making a strong impression on the forecasting community. Focusing on the development and transition of a fully coupled air-ocean-wave prediction system, the COAMPS-TC model includes nonhydrostatic atmospheric dynamics, multiple nested moving grids that follow the center of the storm and improved boundary layer and cloud physical parameterizations.COAMPS-TC was first tested in real-time in support of two field campaigns sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The Tropical Cyclone Structure-08 (TCS-08) conducted as part of The Observing System Research and Predictability Experiment (THORPEX) Pacific Asian Regional Campaign (T-PARC) in 2008 and the Impact of Typhoons on the Ocean in the Pacific (ITOP) in 2010, both of which took place in the Western Pacific. Additionally, COAMPS-TC advancements and real-time demonstrations in the Eastern Pacific and Western Atlantic have taken place through collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as part of the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP) -- a community-wide effort focused on improving operational hurricane prediction.In June 2011, COAMPS-TC was one of nine worldwide winners of the inaugural High Performance Computing (HPC) Excellence Award presented at the ISC-11 International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany -- an award presented annually to recognize noteworthy achievements by users of HPC technologies. As a result, COAMPS-TC was recognized for achieving 'a significantly improved model for tropical cyclone forecasting.' COAMPS-TC development benefited significantly from the Department of Defense HPC Modernization Program Office (HPCMO) computational assets at the Navy Defense Supercomputing Resource Center (DSRC) at Mississippi's Stennis Space Center.Increasingly-sophisticated developmental versions of COAMPS-TC will continue to be demonstrated in real-time and in support of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center and the National Hurricane Center. A key additional enhancement will be a fully coupled ocean-atmosphere version in which the NRL Costal Ocean Model (NCOM) and the Wave Watch III (WWIII) will provide the ocean circulation and wave components, respectively. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
November 15, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111114112242.htm | Protecting Houston from the next big hurricane | To protect Houston and Galveston from future hurricanes, a Rice University-led team of experts recommends building a floodgate across the Houston Ship Channel adding new levees to protect densely populated areas on Galveston Island and the developed west side of Galveston Bay. The team also recommends creating a 130-mile-long coastal recreation area to sustainably use wetlands that act as a natural flood barrier. | The recommendations appear in a new report this month from Rice University's Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center. The report follows more than two years of research into lessons learned from Hurricane Ike, which made landfall at Galveston Island in September 2008. Ike caused 112 U.S. deaths and is the third-costliest storm in U.S. history, with damages estimated at $30 billion."Ike was a Category 2 storm, and Houston and Galveston stand to suffer greater losses from stronger storms, particularly if they hit south of Galveston Bay," said Phil Bedient, director of the SSPEED Center and Rice's Herman Brown Professor of Engineering. "As we studied this, we also met with leaders from industry and government to determine the most realistic and feasible way to protect lives and property from the next big storm."Bedient said the study determined that storm-surge flooding could threaten thousands of lives in heavily populated West Galveston Bay communities like Clear Lake and Dickinson. The study also found that refineries and other industry along the Houston Ship Channel was vulnerable to storm surge greater than 15 feet.SSPEED's study began with a 2009 grant from Houston Endowment to investigate how the region had responded to and been impacted by Ike. The endowment also asked for a set of recommendations about how to protect the region from the most devastating effects of future storms."In developing our recommendations, we were focused on creating a comprehensive plan that addressed the entire region as well as a realistic plan that would be affordable in today's economy," said Jim Blackburn, co-principal investigator on the project and professor in the practice of environmental law at Rice. "It became obvious pretty quickly that we could only achieve both of those goals with a hybrid set of structural and nonstructural solutions."Recommended structural improvements include:Recommended nonstructural improvements include:"We met with dozens of leaders form both the public and private sectors, and the response has been very positive," Bedient said. "Ike clearly showed that Houston and Galveston are vulnerable. The key to engaging people is focusing on realistic solutions."Blackburn said, "Hurricane-surge flooding is one of the most important issues in our region. We have focused on multiple solutions that can be funded from multiple sources, rather than relying on a single source or a single project. We think that this offers the best chance to develop alternatives that can be implemented in a reasonable amount of time. The time to act is now." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
November 11, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111111095550.htm | 2012: Killer solar flares are a physical impossibility, experts say | Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather -- great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun -- some people worry that a gigantic "killer solar flare" could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth. Citing the accurate fact that solar activity is currently ramping up in its standard 11-year cycle, there are those who believe that 2012 could be coincident with such a flare. | But this same solar cycle has occurred over millennia. Anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through such a solar maximum with no harm. In addition, the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in late 2013 or early 2014, not 2012.Most importantly, however, there simply isn't enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth.This is not to say that space weather can't affect our planet. The explosive heat of a solar flare can't make it all the way to our globe, but electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles certainly can. Solar flares can temporarily alter the upper atmosphere creating disruptions with signal transmission from, say, a GPS satellite to Earth causing it to be off by many yards. Another phenomenon produced by the sun could be even more disruptive. Known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), these solar explosions propel bursts of particles and electromagnetic fluctuations into Earth's atmosphere. Those fluctuations could induce electric fluctuations at ground level that could blow out transformers in power grids. The CME's particles can also collide with crucial electronics onboard a satellite and disrupt its systems.In an increasingly technological world, where almost everyone relies on cell phones and GPS controls not just your in-car map system, but also airplane navigation and the extremely accurate clocks that govern financial transactions, space weather is a serious matter.But it is a problem the same way hurricanes are a problem. One can protect oneself with advance information and proper precautions. During a hurricane watch, a homeowner can stay put . . . or he can seal up the house, turn off the electronics and get out of the way. Similarly, scientists at NASA and NOAA give warnings to electric companies, spacecraft operators, and airline pilots before a CME comes to Earth so that these groups can take proper precautions. Improving these predictive abilities the same way weather prediction has improved over the last few decades is one of the reasons NASA studies the sun and space weather. We can't ignore space weather, but we can take appropriate measures to protect ourselves.And, even at their worst, the sun's flares are not physically capable of destroying Earth. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
October 25, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111025163126.htm | NASA satellite sees a more powerful Hurricane Rina, warnings up in Mexico | Hurricane warnings are in effect in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and visible and infrared satellite imagery from NASA continues to show Hurricane Rina getting stronger. Rina is now a category 2 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale. | The Mexican government issued a hurricane warning for the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula from north of Punta Gruesa to Cancun. From Chetumal to Punta Gruesa a tropical storm warning is in effect.As NASA's Terra satellite passed over Hurricane Rina on October 24 at 12:15 p.m. EDT (16:15 UTC) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument took a visible image of the storm as it nears the Yucatan. The strongest thunderstorms around the center are casting shadows on the surrounding lower clouds. Rina's southwestern edge was over Honduras at this time.On October 25, when NASA's Aqua satellite passed overhead it collected valuable data about Rina's cloud top temperatures. High, cold cloud top temperatures indicate a lot of power in the storm, as strong uplift pushes cloud tops higher in the troposphere, where temperatures drop. The higher and colder the thunderstorms within a hurricane, the stronger they are, and the heavier the rainfall within.When Aqua passed overhead, the infrared data was collected from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on the satellite. It showed a large area of strong thunderstorms completely surrounding the center of circulation.Infrared imagery is color coded at NASA. It is created at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. In the image from earlier today, the strongest, coldest, highest cloud tops that surrounded the center of Rina (the eye) were colder than -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius). The eye showed warmer temperatures, indicating that it may be seen on visible satellite data.On October 25 at 11 a.m. EDT, Rina continues to strengthen, as is evident from the AIRS infrared imagery showing powerful convection surrounding the eye of the storm. Rina's maximum sustained winds are now up to 105 mph (165 kmh).Hurricane Rina is closing in on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. It is now centered near 17.4 North and 83.9 West, about 300 miles (480 km) east-southeast of Chetumal, Mexico and 305 miles (490 km) southeast of Tulum, Mexico. That's not too far away when you consider that the tropical storm-force winds extend out 115 miles (185 km) from the center. The hurricane-force winds, however are confined to a much smaller area at this time- outward 15 miles (30 km) from the center.The National Hurricane Center (NHC) noted that Rina is crawling to the west-northwest near 3 mph (6 kmh) and is expected to turn to the northwest and speed up a little over the next two days. Rina's center is expected to approach the Mexican coastline in the hurricane warning area by Wednesday night or early Thursday. Tropical storm-force winds are expected in the warning area tomorrow (Oct. 26) afternoon, followed by hurricane-strength winds.Heavy rainfall as seen in NASA AIRS infrared imagery is going to accompany those winds. The NHC is expecting Rina to produce between 8 and 16 inches of rainfall over the eastern Yucatan late Wednesday and early Thursday, as dangerous storm surge hits coastal areas. Storm surge is expected to be as much as 5 to 7 feet above normal tide levels near the track of the storm's center and right of center.NASA AIRS infrared data also shows that Rina is in an area of very warm ocean temperatures, over the 80 degree Fahrenheit (26.6 C) minimum to maintain a tropical cyclone, which will help Rina strengthen over the next day or two. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
October 24, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111024153418.htm | NASA caught Tropical Storm Rina forming, strengthening | NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite called "TRMM" and NASA's Aqua satellite captured radar and temperature data that showed Tropical Storm Rina forming in the western Caribbean Sea yesterday. Today, Rina continues strengthening. | The National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded an area of disturbed weather in the Caribbean to tropical depression eighteen and then to tropical storm Rina on October 23, 2011. The TRMM satellite flew over the forming tropical cyclone on October 23, 2011 at 1728 UTC (1:28 p.m. EDT).Data from TRMM's Microwave Imager (TMI) and Precipitation Radar (PR) was used to create a rainfall image from the TRMM team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The rainfall image showed that the future storm already was well organized and had a large area of heavy rainfall extending toward the northeast from eastern Honduras. Up until the morning hours (local time) on Monday, October 24, Honduras had a tropical storm watch in effect for its northeastern coast. That watch was dropped by 10 a.m. EDT as Rina moved away.Today, Oct. 24, that rainfall is affecting the northeastern coast of Honduras and Cayman Islands. The NHC said "Rina is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 1 to 3 inches along the northeast coast of Honduras. Rainfall amounts of 2 to 4 inches are possible over the Cayman Islands."At 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 24, Rina's maximum sustained winds were near 45 mph (75 kmh). Those tropical storm-force winds extend out 85 miles (140 km) from the center, making Rina a small tropical storm over 170 miles in diameter.Rina is in an environment with warm water (over the 80F/26.6C threshold needed to maintain a tropical cyclone) and low wind shear. It is centered near 17.1 North latitude and 82.9 West longitude, which is about 190 miles (305 km) southwest of Grand Cayman and 370 miles (595 km) east-southeast of Chetumal, Mexico. Rina was moving to the northwest at 6 mph (9 kmh). Minimum central pressure is 1001 millibars.When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Rina earlier today at 2:47 a.m. EDT the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument took an infrared reading of Rina's cloud top temperatures. The colder the cloud top temperatures, the higher and stronger they are. AIRS temperature data showed a very large area of strong convection and thunderstorms around the center of circulation where cloud top temperatures were colder than -63F (-52C). Those temperatures indicate strong thunderstorms and heavy rainfall. AIRS infrared data showed that Rina continues to become better organized. The AIRS data was created into a color-coded image at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.There are a couple of factors steering Rina through the Caribbean Sea. In the mid-level of the atmosphere there's a ridge (elongated area) of high pressure building over the northern Gulf of Mexico, which is expected to turn Rina to the west-northwest. The NHC noted that as the ridge moves eastward in a couple of days, it will take Rina northwest, then northward. The NHC expects Rina to become a hurricane tomorrow. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
October 18, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111017155614.htm | Clustered hurricanes reduce impact on ecosystems, researchers find | New research has found that hurricane activity is 'clustered' rather than random, which has important long-term implications for coastal ecosystems and human population. The research was carried out by Professor Peter Mumby from The University of Queensland Global Change Institute and School of Biological Sciences, Professor David Stephenson and Dr Renato Vitolo (Willis Research Fellow) at the University of Exeter's Exeter Climate Systems research centre. | Tropical cyclones and hurricanes have a massive economic, social and ecological impact, and models of their occurrence influence many planning activities from setting insurance premiums to conservation planning.Understanding how the frequency of hurricanes varies is important for the people that experience them and the ecosystems that are impacted by hurricanes.The findings published in the journal Short intense periods of hurricanes followed by relatively long quiet periods, were found around the Caribbean Sea and the clustering was particularly strong in Florida, the Bahamas, Belize, Honduras, Haiti and Jamaica.Modelling of corals reefs of the Caribbean found that clustered hurricanes are 'better' for coral reef health than random hurricane events as the first hurricane always causes a lot of damage but then those storms that follow in quick succession don't add much additional damage as most of the fragile corals were removed by the first storm.The following prolonged period without hurricanes allows the corals to recover and then remain in a reasonable state prior to being hit by the next series of storms.It is important to consider the clustered nature of hurricane events when predicting the impacts of storms and climate change on ecosystems. For coral reefs, forecasts of habitat collapse were overly pessimistic and have been predicted at least 10 years too early as hurricanes were assumed to occur randomly over time, which is how most research projects model the incidence of future hurricanes."Cyclones have always been a natural part of coral reef lifecycles," says study author Professor Peter Mumby. "However, with the additional stresses people have placed upon ecosystems like fishing, pollution and climate change, the impacts of cyclones linger a lot longer than they did in the past."Mumby adds: "If we are to predict the future of coral reefs it's really important to consider the clustering of cyclone events. For a given long term rate of hurricanes (e.g., once per decade), clustered events are less damaging.""Clustering of storms and other weather events is a global phenomenon that needs to be better quantified statistically in risk assessments," says study author Professor David Stephenson. "We didn't at first expect clustering to have advantages but this study has clearly shown that clustering can help by giving ecosystems more time to recover from natural catastrophes."Stephenson adds: "This research also has wider implications for other systems such as the dynamics and viability of insurance companies and the provision of reinsurance protection.""Reinsurance companies are a bit like ecosystems and so need time to recover after major losses -- so clustering of hurricanes allows the industry to build profits before the next cluster of storm losses. They are different from corals in that they actually need a few hurricanes for them to be able to grow," said Stephenson. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
October 12, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111012113800.htm | Spotty, strong convection seen in NASA imagery helps Irwin regain tropical storm status | Tropical Storm Irwin almost appeared down for the count, but spotty areas of flaring convection provided a clue to forecasters that he wasn't ready to give up yet. The cloud top temperatures were measured by a NASA instrument at a frigid -112 Fahrenheit, indicating they're very high and powerful. | An infrared image of Tropical Depression Irwin was taken from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite on Oct. 11 at 4:53 a.m. EDT. The infrared data revealed three areas of strong convection still occurring within the depression. Those three areas had high, very cold cloud tops (-80C/-112F) indicated strong convection, and heavy rainfall.Irwin weakened to a tropical depression early today, Oct. 11, but by 11 a.m. EDT, was back to tropical storm status with maximum sustained winds near 40 mph (65 kmh). Those tropical storm- winds extend out 60 miles from the center, making Irwin a small tropical storm, only 120 miles in diameter.Irwin is centered about 620 miles (1000 km) south-southwest the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico, near 15.3 North and 115.0 West. Irwin is moving to the east at 8 mph (12 kmh) and is expected to continue that direction today, but turn to the east-northeast on Oct. 12.The National Hurricane Center discussion for Irwin's future indicates that the strengthening is only temporary because of stable air and increasing wind shear. If infrared data shows Irwin's cloud tops warming, that means they're falling and there's not as much energy in the atmosphere. If that happens, Irwin may drop to depression status again over the next couple of days. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
October 11, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111011171601.htm | NASA gets an icy cold wink from Hurricane Jova's eye | Several NASA satellites have been following Hurricane Jova since birth and over the last day, Jova's eye has "winked" at them. | Satellite imagery from NASA's Aqua and Terra satellites have shown that Jova's eye was only sometimes visible and other times appeared cloud covered, making it appear as Jova "winking." Other satellites, such as NOAA's GOES-11 satellite captured Jova's "winks."In a visible image of Hurricane Jova from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Terra satellite on Oct. 10 at 1:40 p.m. EDT, the eye was clearly visible. A visible image from NOAA's GOES-11 satellite on Oct. 11 at 12:45 p.m. EDT showed Jova's eye "closed" (or cloud-filled). The NASA GOES Project and the MODIS Rapid Response Teams are both located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and processed those images.In addition to Jova's wink, the infrared AIRS instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite got a cold stare from Jova's eye. Infrared data measures cloud top temperatures, and NASA AIRS instrument noticed they were as cold as -80 Celsius (-112 Fahrenheit) in the thunderstorms in Jova's eyewall. Those frigid cloud top temperatures indicate there's a tremendous amount of power in the storm. The colder the cloud tops, the higher and stronger they are- and Jova is very powerful.Today, dangerous Hurricane Jova continues to slowly approach the southwestern coast of Mexico today. At 11 a.m. EDT today, Oct. 11, it was near 17.8 North and 105.6 West. That's about 120 miles (190 km) southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico, and 180 miles (290 km) south of Cabo Corrientes. Jova's maximum sustained winds were near 115 mph (185 kmh). Jova is moving to the north-northeast at 5 mph (7 kmh). The National Hurricane Center expects Jova to speed up a little and turn to the north tonight. That means that the eye of the hurricane will approach the Mexican coast today and make landfall this evening.Warnings continue to be in effect for Mexico as Jova slowly nears. A Hurricane warning is in effect from Punta San Telmo to Cabo Corrientes. A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect from Lazaro Cardenas to Punta San Telmo and Cabo Corrientes to El Roblito. Residents in the warning areas can expect significant flooding from storm surge and rough seas. Rainfall is forecast between 6 and 12 inches, with isolated totals to 20 inches. Residents should check local forecasts and prepare for this powerful hurricane. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
October 7, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111007132353.htm | Strong attachment to local communities made oil spill more stressful for many coastal residents | A major concern related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 was the impact on people living in coastal areas. News reports provided anecdotal evidence that those living along the coast and reliant on the fishing or oil and gas industries for their livelihoods were very distressed and worried about the impact of the spill on their future. | Two decades of social science research has reported that people who are more attached to their communities are better off. They are happier, less depressed and physically healthier than those who have weak attachments to their community. It therefore seemed likely that in south Louisiana, a place where people tend to stay for generations, being strongly attached to the local community would help insulate people from the stress related to dealing with the oil spill. But in a study just advance published online in the prominent journal In one of the first publications to present systematically collected public health data on coastal populations affected by the catastrophic oil spill of 2010, LSU sociologists Matthew Lee and Troy Blanchard report that individuals having a stronger sense of attachment to their community exhibited higher self-reported levels of anxiety, worry, nervousness and fear. The data for their study "Community Attachment and Negative Affective States in the Context of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster" were collected via telephone surveys with more than 900 household respondents in Lafourche, Terrebonne and Plaquemines parishes in coastal Louisiana between June 16 and July 1, 2010, while the oil was still flowing freely.The authors suggest that under normal conditions, attachment to community is a good thing, providing people avenues for social supports and a positive sense of having a place to call home in mass society. Under certain conditions, however, Lee and Blanchard suggest that strong attachments to community actually increase stress and other negative emotional states. This particular situation was unique because the natural resource base was threatened in a region that is heavily dependent economically on having a sound natural resource base. When the resource base is threatened -- for example fisheries being contaminated or closed -- high levels of community attachment often anchor people so strongly to their place of residence that they would be unwilling to move to find another place to make a living.In addition, people who are strongly attached to their communities also tend to know lots of other people in their community who are just like them. They then have not only the personal experience of being stressed, but also end up interacting regularly with other people who are also worried, angry and fearful for their future. This can create a self-reinforcing cycle of stress and anxiety.Based on other research they have been involved in related to Hurricane Katrina, the authors also suggest that community attachment isn't all bad. While initially it is associated with more negative emotions for those in communities affected by disasters like the oil spill, over the long term it is also likely that those people who are most attached are also likely to recover more quickly as time goes by for exactly the same reason: the high degree of social support from neighbors, friends and family their community attachment fosters. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
October 6, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111006173618.htm | NASA's Aqua satellite sees birth of two tropical cyclones in Eastern Pacific | The tropics in the eastern Pacific were quiet for a couple of days after Hurricane Hilary dissipated, and today gave birth to Tropical Depression 10 and Tropical Storm Irwin. NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of both storms and saw the powerful convection in the center of Irwin that enabled the storm to go from a depression to a tropical storm in a short time. | The eleventh tropical depression quickly grew into Tropical Storm Irwin this morning, as strong convection surged around its center of circulation. That convection (rising air that creates the thunderstorms that power a tropical cyclone) was seen in infrared imagery taken early this morning, Oct. 6, from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite. The cold cloud tops from those strong thunderstorms were colder than -63 Fahrenheit (-52 Celsius) and represented the strength in the core of Irwin.At 11 a.m. today, Oct. 6, Tropical Storm Irwin's maximum sustained winds had grown to 40 mph, after forming as a depression just 5 hours before. Irwin was located about 855 miles (1,375 km) south-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California, Mexico near 12.4 North and 116.8 West. It was moving away from land to the west-northwest near 6 mph (9 kmh). The National Hurricane Center expects Irwin to turn to the north and then north-northeast tomorrow. Irwin is expected to strengthen slowly in the next 48 hours. Minimum central pressure was 1005 millibars.Closer to land, NASA's Aqua satellite saw a smaller Tropical Depression 10E. Tropical Depression 10E (TD10E) appears pretty close to Tropical Storm Irwin on the AIRS infrared imagery. It is located to the east-southeast of Tropical Storm Irwin, and it appears to be a smaller, more compact, rounded area of strong convection. Specifically, TD10E is located near 10.3 North and 105.8 West, about 610 miles south of Manzanillo, Mexico. It has maximum sustained winds near 35 mph (55 kmh) and is moving to the west-northwest near 8 mph (13 kmh). The AIRS infrared data shows strong convection around the southwestern edge of the center of circulation, indicating that TD10E could also become a tropical storm shortly.The National Hurricane Center noted that "The tropical cyclone is forecast to remain over warm waters and in a low (wind) shear environment during the next several days" and predicts it could become a hurricane in two or three days. By mid-day on Saturday, Oct. 8, the National Hurricane Center forecast projects TD10E to change course and "recurve ahead of a large trough (elongated area of low pressure) diving southeastward across the southwest United States and the Baja Peninsula." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
October 6, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111006173616.htm | 3-D look at Philippe provided clues of transition into a hurricane | Tropical Storm Philippe took its time to strengthen into a hurricane because of wind shear problems. The wind shear lessened, and Philippe became a hurricane today, after 12 days of moving across the Atlantic Ocean. NASA's TRMM satellite saw towering thunderstorms and intense rainfall within Philippe yesterday, which provided forecasters with a clue that the storm was strengthening. Philippe reached hurricane status this morning, Oct. 6, 2011. | Over two days, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite provided forecasters with cloud heights and rainfall rates occurring within Tropical Storm Philippe. TRMM is managed by both NASA and the Japanese Space Agency, JAXA.The National Hurricane Center (NHC) upgraded Philippe to a hurricane at 1500 UTC (11 a.m. EDT) on Thursday, October 6 2011. Earlier TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI) data from October 6, 2011 at 0024 UTC (Oct. 5 at 8:24 p.m. EDT) showed that tropical storm Philippe's center of circulation had become better defined and an eyewall was forming. Microwave satellite imagery also shows an eye-like feature, while the visible imagery from NOAA's GOES satellite hints at the indication of an eye, although mostly covered with clouds.On Oct. 6, Philippe's maximum sustained winds were near 80 mph (130 kmh). Philippe is a Category One hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, but some weakening is forecast in the next two days. Philippe is located about 425 miles (680 km) southeast of Bermuda, near 27.8 North and 60.0 West. The hurricane is moving to the north-northeast near 9 mph (15 kmh) and is expected to move toward the northeast and speed up.The TRMM satellite also had an excellent look at Philippe earlier on Wednesday, October 5, 2011 at 1752 UTC (1:52 p.m. EDT). TRMM's Precipitation Radar (PR) scanned directly over Philippe and revealed that Philippe had bands of intense rainfall that around the southeast side of the center of circulation.A 3-D rendering of that TRMM PR data showed deep convective towers reached to heights of over 13km (~8 miles). Previous research from NASA scientists show that whenever these "hot towers" are spotted within a tropical cyclone, the storm typically intensifies within six hours, and Philippe became a hurricane today. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
September 10, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110910134446.htm | U.S. experiences second warmest summer on record: Texas has warmest summer on record of any state | The blistering heat experienced by the United States during August, as well as the June through August months, marks the second warmest summer on record, according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) in Asheville, N.C. The persistent heat, combined with below-average precipitation across the southern U.S. during August and the three summer months, continued a record-breaking drought across the region. | The average U.S. temperature in August was 75.7 degrees F, which is 3.0 degrees above the long-term (1901-2000) average, while the summertime temperature was 74.5 degrees F, which is 2.4 degrees above average. The warmest August on record for the contiguous United States was 75.8 degrees F in 1983, while its warmest summer on record at 74.6 degrees F occurred in 1936. Precipitation across the nation during August averaged 2.31 inches, 0.29 inches below the long-term average. The nationwide summer precipitation was 1.0 inch below average.This monthly analysis, based on records dating back to 1895, is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
September 9, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110909111525.htm | Using 61 years of tropical storm data, scientists uncover landfall threat probabilities | Scientists at the University of Miami's (UM's) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science have found an intriguing relationship between hurricane tracks and climate variability. | Angela Colbert, a graduate student in Meteorology & Physical Oceanography, with the collaboration of Professor and Associate Dean for Professional Masters, Dr. Brian Soden, studied data from the Atlantic gathered between 1950-2010, unlocking some noteworthy results, which appear in the American Meteorological Society's Storms were classified into three different categories based on their projected paths: straight moving, recurving landfall, or recurving ocean. Storms that develop farther south and/or west in the tropical Atlantic are more likely to become straight moving storms that ultimately affect the Gulf Coast of the United States and the Western Caribbean. However, storms that form more north or east have a greater chance to threaten the Eastern seaboard or simply recurve into the open ocean.Perhaps the most significant finding was that El Niño seasons are not only associated with fewer storms overall, but those storms that do form are less likely to make landfall due to changes in the atmospheric steering currents."In a typical El Niño season, we found that storms have a higher probability of curving back out into the ocean as opposed to threatening to make landfall along the East Coast of the US due to a change in the circulation across the Atlantic. This is important for not only weather forecasting, but insurance companies, who can use these findings when determining seasonal and yearly quote rates," said Colbert.In contrast La Niña seasons, when the equatorial Pacific Ocean surface is cooler than normal, are associated with both greater numbers of storms as well as an increased likelihood that they will make landfall."Growing up in Florida I have always been fascinated not only with hurricanes, but with severe weather in general. I wanted to better understand tropical cyclones and why they sometimes seem to follow certain tracks throughout a season or longer, so we can better prepare for them," she added.Colbert is a graduate of Palm Harbor University High School and received her Bachelor's degree in Mathematics Education from the University of Central Florida and her Master's degree in Meteorology and Physical Oceanography from the University of Miami. She is a member of the American Meteorological Society and American Geophysical Union, and serves as President of UM's Marine Science Graduate Student Organization. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
August 30, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110830102559.htm | Hurricane Irene: Scientists collect water quality and climate change data from huge storm | While Hurricane Irene had officials along the East Coast preparing for mass evacuations, scientists at the Stroud Water Research Center and the University of Delaware were grabbing their best data collection tools and heading straight for the storm's path. | It was a rare opportunity for the scientists to learn more about climate change and water quality, as Irene threatened to be the biggest hurricane to hit the Northeastern United States since 1985.Center scientist Anthony Aufdenkampe explains, "It rains on average once per week, or 15 percent of the year, but streams and rivers move most of their annual loads on those days."The bigger the storm, the greater the disproportionate load, so you might have a single 100-year storm event move 25 percent of the material for an entire decade," says Aufdenkampe."This is important because fresh waters and the carbon they transport play a major role in the global cycling of greenhouse gases."Irene could reveal much about how soil erosion into rivers might eventually bury carbon and sequester it from acting as a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.That's a primary goal of the Christina River Basin Critical Zone Observatory (CRB-CZO), funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The Stroud Water Research Center and University of Delaware scientists are affiliated with the CRB-CZO.The CRB-CZO is at the forefront of scientific research on integrating how human effects on the hydrologic, mineral and carbon cycles might have feedbacks to climate change."One of the motivations for NSF Critical Zone Observatories such as the CRB-CZO is to obtain time-continuous observations that would document and help us understand infrequent events," says Jun Abrajano of NSF's Earth Sciences Division."Some of these events are extreme enough to have major cumulative effects on the overall processes and fluxes in watershed systems. The track and magnitude of Hurricane Irene may prove it to be such an event."We're hypothesizing, says Aufdenkampe, "that big storms are a major player in determining what happens to the carbon in a leaf, for example."Does it go back into the atmosphere or does it get buried for decades, centuries, or millennia? That's the key to global warming and climate change."Aufdenkampe and colleagues visited sites along White Clay Creek and Brandywine Creek to set up equipment to collect floodwaters throughout the storm.And with innovative tools developed with relatively inexpensive open-source electronic hardware, the researchers didn't have to wait around.Engineer Steve Hicks of the Stroud Water Research Center put together automatic water samplers that may be triggered remotely via cell phone. "By watching real-time sensor data streaming to the Internet, at precisely the right moment we fill the barrels of water we need for our analyses.""Had a storm like this hit five or ten years ago, we wouldn't have been able to gather this type of data," says Aufdenkampe."But now with open-source hardware and software, anything's possible. We're only limited by our imagination."Visit the CRB-CZO website for more information. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
August 28, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110828191433.htm | NASA satellite shows a mean Irene's fury | After pounding North Carolina and Virginia on Aug. 27, Hurricane Irene made a second landfall near Little Egg Inlet, N.J., early Sunday morning, Aug. 28, still as a category one hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kilometers per hour). It then weakened slightly before making a third landfall over Coney Island, N.Y. as a 65-mph (100-kilometer-per-hour) tropical storm. Irene's heavy rains, winds and storm surge are causing widespread problems throughout the U.S. mid-Atlantic and Northeast. | This infrared image of Irene was taken by the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft at 2:47 a.m. EDT on Aug. 27, a few hours before the storm's second landfall in New Jersey.The AIRS data create an accurate 3-D map of atmospheric temperature, water vapor and clouds, data that are useful to forecasters. The image shows the temperature of Irene's cloud tops or the surface of Earth in cloud-free regions. The coldest cloud-top temperatures appear in purple, indicating towering cold clouds and heavy precipitation. The infrared signal of AIRS does not penetrate through clouds. Where there are no clouds, AIRS reads the infrared signal from the surface of the ocean waters, revealing warmer temperatures in orange and red.AIRS is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., under contract to NASA. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.More information about AIRS can be found at | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
August 25, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825152505.htm | New Jersey researchers have an eye on the science of Hurricane Irene | While residents along the New Jersey and New York coasts rush to the store for batteries and bottled water, scientists at | At the Stevens Center for Maritime Systems (CMS), ocean researchers manage a large network of submerged sensors throughout the New York Harbor region, from the South Jersey shore to the eastern end of Long Island and north up the Hudson River. This Urban Ocean Observatory combines real-time and historic data with advanced understanding of ocean physics to make predictions about how tides and other cyclical ocean behaviors influence the potential impact of storms.When it comes to calculating the effects of a coming hurricane, wind speed, size, and location of the storm are only part of the equation."We're also looking at lunar activity and erosion as important elements when factoring what we can expect from a storm like Irene," says Dr. Alan Blumberg, Director of CMS.Lunar activity is expected to play a large role in influencing the storm's impact on the coast. Irene will arrive at both perigee, when the Moon's elliptical orbit brings it closest to Earth, and the new moon, when the Moon and sun are aligned on the same side of our planet. Both the Moon's position and phase will intensify gravitational effects on the tides, causing greater tidal ranges.Currently, Irene is modeled to travel up the New Jersey coast during during the incoming tide on Sunday. The time of passage is expected to generate significant storm surge impacts along the northern New Jersey Coast before the hurricane makes landfall in western Long Island that evening. Waves with heights over 20 feet are expected on the shelf, generating large breaks on shore and significant beach erosion. For regional beaches, this is a vastly different outlook compared to last year's Hurricane Earl, which stayed further out in the Atlantic and produced long, low waves that probably reversed erosion by pushing sand onto the shore.On Wednesday, August 24, CMS began releasing short statements on Hurricane Irene that describes these latent conditions that can alter the effect of the storm on the region's busy and heavily populated coast.Residents in New York and New Jersey can monitor their waterways during the storm and year-round by visiting the CMS New York Harbor Observing and Prediction System online, but Dr. Blumberg also recommends that anyone in the path of Hurricane Irene consult the National Hurricane Center for the latest information. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
August 25, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110825135148.htm | NASA satellites Hurricane Irene almost one-third the size of U.S. east coast | Hurricane Irene is a major hurricane, and NASA satellite data shows its diameter is now about one-third the length of the U.S. Atlantic coastline. Meanwhile, far in the eastern Atlantic Ocean a tenth tropical depression formed. One satellite image captured both storms and shows the tremendous difference in their size. | NOAA's GOES-13 satellite saw Hurricane Irene moving through the Bahamas on August 25, 2011 at 10:02 a.m. EDT and far to the east off the African coast was newly born Tropical Depression 10. The GOES-13 image shows Irene to be almost one third of the size of the U.S. east coast. The distance from Augusta, Maine to Miami, Florida is 1662.55 miles. Hurricane Irene's tropical storm-force winds extend 255 miles from the center making Irene 510 miles in diameter, almost one-third the size of the U.S. Hurricane-force winds extend 70 miles from the center, or 140 miles in diameter.GOES-13 images and animations are created at NASA's GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.NASA satellites are providing valuable data to forecasters to assist them in the forecasts for Irene's track and power. As of this morning, a Hurricane Watch is now in effect for the coastal U.S.On Thursday morning, August 24, a hurricane warning is in effect for the central and northwestern Bahamas. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has also issued the first watch for the U.S. east coast. A hurricane watch is in effect for north of Surf City, North Carolina to the North Carolina-Virginia border including the Pamlico, Albemarle, and Currituck Sounds. A tropical storm watch is in effect for north of Edisto Beach, South Carolina to Surf City North Carolina.NASA satellites are flying above Hurricane Irene, providing forecasters at NHC with temperature, pressure, wind, and cloud and sea surface temperature data. All of those things are critical in helping forecasters determine how Irene will behave and track.The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite captured a visible image of Hurricane Irene's eye directly over Crooked Island in the southern Bahamas on August 24, 2011 at 18:15 UTC (2:15 p.m. EDT).By 11 a.m. EDT on August 25, Irene had moved north and was 75 miles (105 km) east-northeast of Nassau near 25.9 North latitude and 76.8 West longitude. Irene's winds dropped slightly from 120 mph (195 kmh) to 115 mph (kmh) and it was moving to the north-northwest near 13 mph (20 kmh). The NHC, however, noted that some further strengthening is possible today and tonight.Irene's minimum central pressure has fallen from 954 to 951 millibars since the day before, indicating the storm is still intensifying despite the slight temporary drop in maximum sustained winds.Hurricane-force wind gusts were already reaching Nassau at 8 a.m. EDT. Hurricane force winds are spreading over the northwestern Bahamas this morning and the central Bahamas are still being battered by hurricane or tropical storm force winds, which will diminish later today as Irene moves away.Residents in South Florida are also under warnings for dangerous rip currents and high surf along the eastern shores through Friday, August 26. A tropical storm warning in effect for the offshore marine waters of Palm Beach County, Florida beyond 20 nautical miles, and at 5:30 a.m. EDT this morning, rainbands spreading west over the adjacent Atlantic waters. Numerous showers and thunderstorms are expected along the south Florida coast today and tonight.Far in the eastern Atlantic, Tropical Depression 10 formed about 435 miles (700 km) west-southwest of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands. It was centered near 12.4 North and 30.4 West, and moving to the west-northwest near 13 mph (20 kmh). Tropical Depression 10 (TD10) has maximum sustained winds near 35 mph (55 kmh) and may become a tropical storm in the next day or two. It is not expected to be a threat to the U.S. and is expected to remain at sea.In the meantime, evacuation plans are already under way in North Carolina for the massive Hurricane Irene.Updates on Irene's strength and forecast track can be found at the National Hurricane Center's website: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
August 8, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110808124248.htm | Increase in tornado, hurricane damage brings call for more stringent building standards | Researchers from a team funded by the National Science Foundation have examined some of last spring's massive tornado damage and conclude in a new report that more intensive engineering design and more rigorous, localized construction and inspection standards are needed to reduce property damage and loss of life. | As one of the nation's most destructive tornado seasons in history begins to wane, and hurricane season approaches its peak, experts are working to determine if old, tried-and-true approaches to residential and small building construction are still adequate, or if it's time to revisit these issues."Modern building codes are not what we would call inadequate, but they are kind of a bare minimum," said Rakesh Gupta, a professor of wood engineering and mechanics at Oregon State University, and one of the members of the NSF team that traveled to such sites as Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Joplin, Mo. -- where a massive EF5 tornado in May killed more than 150 people and caused damage approaching $3 billion."Beyond that, in the actual construction process, buildings are often not built precisely to codes, due to inadequate construction work or code enforcement," he said. "We can do better. The damage didn't have to be as bad as it was. We can design and build structures more rigorously that could withstand wind forces up to 140-150 miles per hour, which would help them better resist both tornadoes and hurricanes."In their research, the scientists and engineers found that even in the most catastrophic tornadoes, the path exposed to the most extreme winds is very narrow. In the Joplin example, buildings less than one-half mile away probably faced winds in the 130 mph range, which often destroyed them because they lacked appropriate fasteners, tie-downs, connectors, or adequate number of sheathing nails."Another thing we need to consider more in our building practices is the local risks and situation," said Arijit Sinha, an OSU professor in the Department of Wood Science and Engineering."Just as cities like San Francisco adapt their building codes to consider earthquake risks, many other towns and cities across the nation could be creating local codes to reflect their specific risks from hurricanes, tornadoes, high winds or other concerns," Sinha said. "A national building code may be convenient, but it isn't always the best for every single town in the country."Among the findings of the new report:Cost will always be an issue in either new construction or retrofitting of existing structures to better resist these violent storms, the researchers said, but in new construction some of the costs are fairly modest. Thicker plywood sheathing, closer stud spacing such as 12 inches on center, tighter nailing schedules, and more consistent use of inexpensive metal connectors such as "hurricane ties" and anchor bolts could accomplish much to improve safety and reduce damage, Gupta said.Retrofitting of existing homes is much more costly, but still something many homeowners should consider, he said. And although tornadoes and hurricanes have different types of impacts on buildings, the wind speeds of a moderate tornado and major hurricane are similar.Even where cities and towns don't have more stringent building codes, Sinha said, individuals can and probably should have their blueprints or structures reviewed by licensed engineers to plan adequately for damage from hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes or other extreme forces.For reasons that are not clear, 2011 has been one of the most destructive tornado years in history, even in regions of the Midwest and South that experience these storms with regularity.One of the largest outbreaks of severe weather in U.S. history occurred on April 27, including a tornado that hit Tuscaloosa County in Alabama, destroying or severely damaging 4,700 homes. The new report was based on lessons learned from that event.The report was done by a study team supported by the National Science Foundation and the International Associations for Wind Engineering that included researchers from OSU, the University of Florida, University of Alabama, Applied Technology Council, South Dakota State University, and private industry. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
July 22, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110722213436.htm | NASA catches three tropical cyclones at one time | It's not often that a satellite can capture an image of more than one tropical cyclone, but the GOES-13 satellite managed to get 3 tropical cyclones in two ocean basins in one image today. Bret and his "sister" Cindy are racing through the North Atlantic, while another area tries to develop far to their south. "Cousin" Dora is still a hurricane in the eastern Pacific. | In infrared image taken on July 22 at 0845 UTC (4:45 a.m. EDT), GOES-13 captured Tropical Depression Bret, Tropical Storm Cindy in the north Atlantic and low pressure area associated with a tropical wave in the Caribbean and Hurricane Dora is in the eastern Pacific, off the coast of Mexico. Cindy is 910 miles west-northwest of the Azores and Bret 295 miles northwest of Bermuda.NASA's GOES Project issued an infrared image of both Bret and Cindy today from the GOES-13 satellite, which is operated by NOAA. The NASA GOES Project is housed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. and uses GOES-13 data from NOAA to create images and animations.During the morning of July 22 Bret has sped up on his track through the north Atlantic and weakened. Bret is being battered by winds and cooler waters.Bret was a tropical depression at 8 a.m. EDT on July 22, with maximum sustained winds near 35 mph (55 kmh). He was speeding to the northeast near 21 mph (33 kmh). By noon (EDT) Bret had degenerated into a low pressure area. His center was near 37.7N and 64.2 W, about 375 miles north of Bermuda.Bret is now experiencing very strong wind shear and moving into cooler waters, two factors that will help dissipate the depression over the weekend. Those waters that Bret is moving into are cooler than 71 Fahrenheit (22 Celsius), about 9 degrees cooler than the threshold of warmth needed to keep a tropical cyclone going.As Bret has sped up in his race across the Atlantic, so has his sister Cindy. Cindy is actually out-racing Bret, as she's moving to the northeast near 29 mph (46 kmh) in the far north Atlantic Ocean. She is expected to continue moving in this direction over the weekend. GOES-13 satellite data showed that her cloud pattern has become ragged overnight.She was located about 805 miles northwest of the Azores near 44. 5 North and 39.9 West. Her maximum sustained winds were near 50 mph (85 kmh), so she's stronger than her "brother" Bret, who is now down to tropical depression status. Because Cindy is now in very cold water (68F/20C), weakening is forecast and like Bret, she could dissipate over the weekend well to the west of the British Isles.Far to the south of both Bret and Cindy a low pressure area belonging to a tropical wave in the Caribbean is trying to get organized. As of July 22, the National Hurricane Center noted that there's only a 20 percent chance that the low will get its act together over the weekend.The low pressure area is located about 425 miles east of the Windward Islands, near 15 N and 50 W, and is kicking up scattered showers and thunderstorms. It is moving almost as fast as Bret, and is headed west-northwest between 15 and 20 mph. During July 22 and 23, that low pressure area is expected to bring locally heavy rainfall and gusty winds to parts of the Lesser Antilles.Hurricane Dora Weakening Hurricane Dora continues to weaken from northerly wind shear as it moves northwest into cooler waters as cool as 23 Celsius.At 8 a.m. EDT on July 22, Dora has weakened to a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale as it continues to parallel the western coast of Mexico and move in a northwesterly direction about 9 mph (15 kmh). Dora's maximum sustained winds are now near 90 mph (150 kmh). It is centered about 255 miles (415 km) south of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico near 19.2 North and 109.2 West. Minimum central pressure is 977 milibars.There is a tropical storm warning in effect in Mexico from Agua Blanca to Buenavista including Cabo San Lucas. That means that tropical storm conditions exist somewhere in the warning area or will within 24 hours. Tropical Storm-force winds are likely in the warning area as Dora's center stays off the coast, and hurricane-force winds only extend out 35 miles from her center.Southwestern Mexico and Baja California beaches and coastal areas will be hit with large and dangerous ocean swells. These swells will likely cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.By Monday, July 25, Bret and Cindy may be off the books while Dora is expected to last through the weekend. As for the tropical wave in the Atlantic, GOES-13 will keep a close eye on it. | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
July 6, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110706104757.htm | Bigger than football: Study shows sports can help communities recover from disaster | Research from North Carolina State University shows that organized sports can be a powerful tool for helping to rebuild communities in the wake of disasters. The research focused specifically on the role of professional football in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. | "Sports, and by extension sports media, can be a powerful force for good. It can bring people together. It can provide hope, even in the midst of great destruction," says Dr. Ken Zagacki, co-author of a paper describing the research and a professor of communication at NC State. "But we have to be careful that we don't use sports to gloss over real problems. We don't want to 'move on' from tragedies like Katrina when real social problems remain."In late summer 2005, New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were facing unprecedented destruction stemming from Hurricane Katrina. The region was going through social and economic upheaval. And, in the days immediately following Katrina's landfall, the Louisiana Superdome had been the backdrop for scenes of men, women and children struggling to get basic necessities.In September 2006, the New Orleans Saints played their first home game in that same building, which had just been restored. Zagacki and Dr. Daniel Grano, lead author of the paper and an associate professor at University of North Carolina Charlotte, wanted to see what role that landmark game had in New Orleans' recovery.Louisiana is well known for its passionate football fans, and the Superdome had corresponding cultural importance in the state. As a result, the post-Katrina images of human suffering were particularly traumatic for the region. Those images also raised issues of racism, since the bulk of the citizens stranded there were poor and African American. "In short," Zagacki says, "an important focal point for the community had become associated with despair, rather than pride."But the media coverage of the Saints' homecoming, and the game itself, served as almost a purification ritual for the community. It really helped to reunite the community, giving them a common bond and helping them to move forward."However, the media coverage also exacerbated some of the social problems the region was struggling with -- particularly concerning race and poverty." For example, television broadcasts and public officials repeatedly associated images of African American evacuees with uncivilized conditions in the Superdome, spreading terrifying rumors that proved mostly untrue."The images were intended to highlight the contrast between 'then' and 'now,'" Zagacki says, "to illustrate how far New Orleans had come in its recovery. But those same images might have also reinforced negative racial stereotypes."The Saints game did serve to help bring the New Orleans community together, giving it a shared sense of identity. However, the researchers say there is some concern that it may also have fostered a false sense of harmony, that forestalled public engagement on issues related to race and class."Sports, at any level, can be a powerful unifying force in the wake of a disaster," Zagacki says. "We hope people can utilize that, without losing sight of the larger problems that often need to be dealt with during a community's recovery." | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
July 1, 2011 | https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110630162116.htm | La Niña's exit leaves climate forecasts in limbo | It's what Bill Patzert, a climatologist and oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., likes to call a "La Nada" -- that puzzling period between cycles of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean when sea surface heights in the equatorial Pacific are near average. | The comings and goings of El Niño and La Niña are part of a long-term, evolving state of global climate, for which measurements of sea surface height are a key indicator. For the past three months, since last year's strong La Niña event dissipated, data collected by the U.S.-French Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2 oceanography satellite have shown that the equatorial Pacific sea surface heights have been stable and near average. Elsewhere, however, the northeastern Pacific Ocean remains quite cool, with sea levels much lower than normal. The presence of cool ocean waters off the U.S. West Coast has also been a factor in this year's cool and foggy spring there.The current state of the Pacific is shown in this OSTM/Jason-2 image, based on the average of 10 days of data centered on June 18, 2011. The image depicts places where Pacific sea surface height is higher (warmer) than normal as yellow and red, while places where the sea surface is lower (cooler) than normal are shown in blue and purple. Green indicates near-normal conditions. Sea surface height is an indicator of how much of the sun's heat is stored in the upper ocean.For oceanographers and climate scientists like Patzert, "La Nada" conditions can bring with them a high degree of uncertainty. While some forecasters (targeting the next couple of seasons) have suggested La Nada will bring about "normal" weather conditions, Patzert cautions previous protracted La Nadas have often delivered unruly jet stream patterns and wild weather swings.In addition, some climatologists are pondering whether a warm El Niño pattern (which often follows La Niña) may be lurking over the horizon. Patzert says that would be perfectly fine for the United States."For the United States, there would be some positives to the appearance of El Niño this summer," Patzert said. "The parched and fire-ravaged southern tier of the country would certainly benefit from a good El Niño soaking. Looking ahead to late August and September, El Niño would also tend to dampen the 2011 hurricane season in the United States. We've had enough wild and punishing weather this year. Relief from the drought across the southern United States and a mild hurricane season would be very welcome."Jason-2 scientists will continue to monitor Pacific Ocean sea surface heights for signs of El Niño, La Niña or prolonged neutral conditions.JPL manages the U.S. portion of the OSTM/Jason-2 mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C.For more information on NASA's ocean surface topography missions, visit: To view the latest Jason-1 and OSTM/Jason-2 data, visit: | Hurricanes Cyclones | 2,011 |
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