Forecasters for days recognized the devastation Hurricane Melissa would bring to Jamaica, Cuba, and other Caribbean islands. Some of the research that helps inform forecasters is generated out of the University at Albany’s Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences. WAMC’s Cailin Brown spoke with researcher Melissa Piper, co-author of a new study published in “Weather and Forecasting,” which compares the accuracy of data collected via hurricane hunter missions with data collection reliant only satellite imagery and ground observations.
"I have done some work into the NOAA- G4, synoptic surveillance aircraft missions which are umbrella under the Hurricane Hunter missions," said Melissa Piper, a graduate student and co-author of research recently published in Weather and Forecasting. "The difference is this aircraft doesn't fly into storms or through the eye of the hurricane, but instead looks in the surrounding environment.
"And what my study showed is that forecasts that had the data collected by this G4 aircraft tended to be more accurate in their track forecast predictions than forecasts that did not have any data from these aircraft. And where this connects to Hurricane Melissa down in the Caribbean, making landfall in Jamaica, is that all of the data, not just from the G4 aircraft, but the other aircraft collected by the Hurricane Hunters, goes into collecting real time information about the intensity of the storm, so things like the maximum sustained winds we see, we have Hurricane Melissa that made landfall as a category five hurricane based on its maximum wind speeds. So the data being collected by these hurricane hunter aircrafts are helping the National Hurricane Center see in real time how strong is this storm? How strong is Melissa? Is Melissa undergoing any changes that might signal changes in the intensity? Is Melissa going to intensify more before making landfall, or might it weaken?," Piper said.
"All of this kind of comes together in that the data that these Hurricane Hunters are collecting really help in real time, making the most accurate forecast that the National Hurricane Center can try to make, as well as giving the real observations of the current state of the hurricane and the surrounding environment to help the forecast models make a better forecast, which all you know, circles back to helping better prepare for these big, devastating hurricanes such as Melissa. How does it work that you collect this data and then it ends up being a value in the real world?
"With the G4 aircraft, specifically that I studied, as well as there's some overlaps with the other Hurricane Hunter aircraft that fly through the eye of hurricanes, but with the G4s specifically, they fly around the hurricane and then in the nearby environment, and they release these weather instruments called dropsondes, if you think of weather balloons that are released from the surface of the planet, and they go up through the atmosphere. Dropsondes are kind of the opposite. They are released from an aircraft very high up in the atmosphere, and they fall toward the surface, collecting information about the atmosphere, so information such as temperature, humidity, wind speeds, etc. And so this information collected by the dropsonde is transmitted back to scientists at the National Hurricane Center in NOAA, where they look at the information They can see what the variables are measuring to help in the real time forecasting.
"But this information is also sent out to the weather model forecasting centers, so the big computer systems at NOAA and other forecast models around the world will receive this information, put it into the big set of information and current observations that they Use in forecast weather models to create or generate the next forecast that will be used to predict weather around the entire globe. So this information collected by these hurricane hunter aircraft not only goes to improving the forecast of the hurricane itself, but it's part of a complete picture of what's going on in the entire atmosphere to help better forecast weather around the globe."
"When you're looking at the data coming out of Melissa touching ground in Jamaica, what are your expectations for what this means to Jamaica and surrounding areas,? asked WAMC's Cailin Brown.
"Unfortunately, I think Jamaica and surrounding Caribbean countries are going to be just devastated by Hurricane Melissa. This appears to be a generational level storm. Not only has Melissa made landfall in Jamaica as a category five hurricane, you know, extremely intense wind speeds. There's also the rainfall and flooding aspect that we're seeing with Melissa, you know, regions in Jamaica and other surrounding nations, you know, Cuba, Western Haiti are seeing. Seeing upwards of 20 or even 30 inches of rain falling.
"And so there's going to be massive wind devastation compounding with flooding. It's very mountainous in some of these areas of the Caribbean, and so you could have landslides just water rushing down the mountain. So it's going to be in every aspect, wind, rainfall, even storm surge along the coastline, is just unfortunately, extremely devastating. So we'll know in the upcoming days, once Melissa has moved out of these countries, just how bad things are. I have a haunting feeling that this is going to be a long recovery for the people of those countries.
Brown said: "We talked about the generational nature of this particular hurricane. I remember back in 1992 when I was a reporter covering the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew when it hit Homestead, Florida, and the Air National Guard brought a pack of us down to observe their rescue efforts, and we stopped in Guantanamo Bay to pick up supplies on the way to homestead, and Flying into homestead, we saw what once was a city was no longer there. Is that the sort of thing you're expecting that is going to happen to Jamaica?"
Piper replied: "I would expect similar levels of destruction from Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica. Right as Melissa was making landfall, it had sustained wind speeds of 185 miles per hour near the center of the hurricane, which is pretty sure I've seen, is preliminarily tied for the fastest wind speed of an Atlantic hurricane that has made landfall. All that to say is Melissa is one of the most intense storms to make landfall anywhere in the Atlantic Ocean in our recorded history. Would you say that the research you have been doing will contribute to how we are able to respond in the future to these sorts of weather events?
"My studies show the positive benefit of adding these observations to the weather models suggest that future forecasting strategies should prioritize these hurricane hunter missions to help boost forecast accuracy. Hypothetically, the more accurate our forecasts are, the longer we have to warn people of an impending natural disaster. If we had less accurate forecast, you may only have a few hours to a day of advance notice," Piper said. "I think that's really where my study fits in - is helping with boosting that forecast accuracy, showing the value of the hurricane hunter observations and how we can use that to translate into longer preparation time for people to prepare for these events."
That was WAMC’s Cailin Brown with U-Albany’s Melissa Piper.
