A new way to measure the strength of tropical storms may soon help get more accurate readings while systems are still far away and could provide a more accurate prediction of where they will go.
Researchers from the University of Miami and the Hurriane Research Division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recently released a report which documents their work in discovering how "gravity waves" can be used to determine the strength of a storm which is still hundreds of miles away from our shores. The waves are atmospheric disturbances caused by storms in the thunderstorms in the eyes of cyclones, similar to the radiating ripples that result from dropping an object into water.
"With the increasing quality and frequency of satellite images, we've been able to see those waves," says UM Atmospheric Sciences Chair David Nolan, the lead author of the study which appears in Geophysical Research Letters. "Now that we're measuring these gravity waves, we can use that as a way to test how realistic these computer models are."
In addition to pictures from space, Nolan says the waves can be seen from Hurricane Hunter planes which the NOAA sends out to get a closer look at storms while they are still out over the Atlantic Ocean or the Caribbean Sea. Data from high quality barometers can also detect the waves so if a network of those barometers were scattered around those bodies of water, meteorologists could get more accurate data about the strength of a storm from further out to plug into computer models that predict it's path.
"We're going to continue doing computer simulations and making those better," Professor Nolan tells WIOD. "Another thing we're hoping to do is to work with NOAA to basically design their flight paths when they go through the hurricanes so they better measure the waves directly."
Nolan cautions that more work is needed to study the waves of real storms in real time before figuring out the exact correlation between the size of gravity waves and the strength of storms. Once that is accomplished, the data can be used to get a faster, more accurate read of how storms are intensifying, especially if satellite information were to be compromised.
When severe weather is approaching our area, make sure to get the latest from WIOD's Operation Stormwatch.
(Photo credit: Joe Raedle)