NASA's Global Hawk Investigating Atlantic Tropical Depression

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.

Rob Gutro

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

NASA Mission Sending Unmanned Aircraft Over Hurricanes This Year

Beginning this summer and over the next several years, NASA will be sending unmanned aircraft dubbed "severe storm sentinels" above stormy skies to help researchers and forecasters uncover information about hurricane formation and intensity changes.

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.

NASA's unmanned sentinels are autonomously flown. 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 - 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.

"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. 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," said Scott Braun, HS3 mission principal investigator and research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

HS3 will use two Global Hawk aircraft and six different instruments this summer, flying from a base of operations at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

"One aircraft will sample the environment of storms while the other will measure eyewall and rainband winds and precipitation," Braun said. 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 that the Saharan Air Layer can both favor or 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.

The HS3 mission will operate during portions of the Atlantic hurricane seasons, which run from June 1 to November 30. The 2012 mission will run from late August through early October.

The instruments to be mounted in the Global Hawk aircraft that will examine the environment of the storms include the scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS), the Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) also known as dropsondes, and the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL). The Tropospheric Wind Lidar Technology Experiment (TWiLiTE) Doppler wind lidar will likely fly in the 2013 mission.

Another set of instruments will fly on the Global Hawk focusing on the inner region of the storms. Those instruments include the High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP) conically scanning Doppler radar, the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD) multi-frequency interferometric radiometer, and the High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) microwave sounder. Most of these instruments represent advanced technology developed by NASA, that in some cases are precursors to future satellite sensors.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate Global Hawk aircraft will deploy to Wallops Flight Facility from their home base at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

"HS3 marks the first time that NASA's Global Hawks will deploy away from Dryden for a mission, potentially marking the beginning of an era in which they are operated regularly from Wallops," said Paul Newman, atmospheric scientist at NASA Goddard and deputy principal investigator on the HS3 mission.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington is establishing a Global Hawk operations center for science operations from Wallops.. "With the Global Hawks at NASA Dryden in California, NASA Wallops will become the 'Global Hawk - Eastern' science center," Newman said.

From rockets studying the upper atmosphere to unmanned aircraft flying over hurricanes, NASA's Wallops Flight Facility is fast becoming a busy place for science. Wallops is one of several NASA centers involved with the HS3 mission. Others include Goddard, Dryden, Ames Research Center, Marshall Space Flight Center, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The HS3 mission is funded by NASA Headquarters and managed by NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder Program at NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va. The HS3 mission also involves collaborations with various partners including the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Laboratory, NOAA's Hurricane Research Division and Earth System Research Laboratory, Northrop Grumman Space Technology, National Center for Atmospheric Research, State University of New York at Albany, University of Maryland - Baltimore County, University of Wisconsin, and University of Utah.

Related Links

HS3 Mission

http://science.nasa.gov/missions/hs3/

NASA Hurricane Research

www.nasa.gov/hurricane

NASA Wallops Flight Facility

www.nasa.gov/wallops

NASA's Airborne Science Program

http://airbornescience.nasa.gov

NASA's Global Hawks

http://airbornescience.nasa.gov/aircraft/Global_Hawk  

Rob Gutro

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Hurricane Season 2012: System 90L (Atlantic Ocean/Gulf of Mexico)

NASA Watches a Gulf Weather System for Unusual Subtropical Development

Hurricane season in the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico doesn't begin until June 1, 2012, but a low pressure area in the Gulf called System 90L, is being watched on February 5 and 6 for possible development into sub-tropical depression although the chances are now slim to none. Data from the GOES-13 satellite was created into an image at NASA, and it showed System 90L raining on south Florida today.

On Sunday, February 5, at 6:45 p.m. EST the National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a special tropical weather outlook for System 90L. The outlook stated, "A non-tropical low pressure system interacting with an upper-level trough (elongated area of low pressure) is producing widespread cloudiness...showers...and scattered thunderstorms across much of western and central Cuba...the lower Florida keys...and adjacent waters of the northwestern Caribbean Sea...southeastern Gulf of Mexico...and the Florida Straits." At that time, System 90L was located just west of Cuba's western tip and the NHC gave it a 30 percent chance of becoming a subtropical cyclone.

By Monday, February 6 at 7 a.m. EST, System 90L extended from western Cuba northward into the Florida straits and it was interacting with a mid-to-upper-level trough (elongated area of low pressure). Because there are no signs of organized surface circulation, the NHC has dropped the chance that the system will develop into a subtropical depression to near zero.

NOAA's GOES-13 satellite captured a visible image of System 90L in the eastern Gulf of Mexico on Monday, February 6, 2012. The image was created by NASA's GOES Project at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. NOAA operates the GOES series of satellites, and NASA's GOES Project creates imagery and animations from the satellite data. In the image, System 90L appeared as the somewhat rounded area of clouds over Florida's southern peninsula. Some of the thunderstorms in the northwestern quadrant of System 90L appeared to be higher (they cast shadows on the clouds around them) and were likely stronger with heavy rain.

Even though the chance for development into a pre-season subtropical storm is now near zero, System 90L is expected to bring widespread heavy rainfall and some gusty winds over northern Cuba, the Florida Keys and south Florida on Monday, February 6. The National Weather Service issued a hazardous weather outlook on February 6 for Miami that calls for locally heavy rain with a slight risk of thunderstorms. Thunderstorms may contain gusty winds and occasional lightning strikes. There is also a slight risk of rip currents at the Palm Beach County beaches on Florida's east coast.

System 90L is moving to the northeast at about 15 mph and is creating a very wet start to the week in southern Florida.

Text Credit: Rob Gutro

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Hurricane Irene

High above the Earth from aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Ron Garan snapped this image of Hurricane Irene as it passed over the Caribbean on Aug. 22, 2011.

The National Hurricane Center noted on Aug. 22 that Irene is expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 5 to 10 inches across Puerto Rico, The Virgin Islands, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Southeastern Bahamas and The Turks and Caicos Islands. Isolated maximum amounts of rainfall may reach up to 20 inches.

Image Credit: NASA