# Presentation: 517945

## THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA CENTERFOR HURRICANE INTENSITY AND LANDFALL RESEARCH Sytske Kimball, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AlabamaPeter Black, NOAA / AOML / Hurricane Research Division, Miami, FloridaNaomi Surgi, NOAA NWS / EMC, Camp Springs, MarylandJohn Proni, NOAA / AOML / Ocean Chemistry Division, Miami, Florida 

- THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH ALABAMA CENTERFOR HURRICANE INTENSITY AND LANDFALL RESEARCH Sytske Kimball, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AlabamaPeter Black, NOAA / AOML / Hurricane Research Division, Miami, FloridaNaomi Surgi, NOAA NWS / EMC, Camp Springs, MarylandJohn Proni, NOAA / AOML / Ocean Chemistry Division, Miami, Florida

**Introduction**
- Recent active hurricane seasons have shown that accurate prediction of hurricane landfall forms a major challenge to the hurricane forecasting community. To improve hurricane prediction during the next decade along the Gulf Coast will require a dense network of offshore, coastal, and inland instrument platforms. Such a network in these three critical zones will provide unique new measurements to advance both physical understanding and forecasting capabilities of landfalling hurricanes. Meanwhile, the Nation’s next generation operational hurricane forecast system, the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model, developed by NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center (EMC) will require extensive testing and validation. Both these goals are the thrust of the mission of the University of South Alabama (USA) Center for Hurricane Intensity and Landfall Research.

**Station Configuration**
- A photo of a USA Mesonet weather station, with the different sensors, is shown above. Each station consists of temperature, humidity, and wind sensors at 2 and 10 m height. There are 2 tipping-bucket raingauges, soil-humidity and -temperature sensors at 3 different depths, 2 barometers, an infrared thermometer to measure ground temperature, solar radiation sensors, and a vertical windspeed anemometer. The whole system is powered by a solar panel (facing south at a 45 degree angle) and has a battery to provide backup power. Data are stored in a datalogger and are transmitted by radio to a computer connected to the Internet in a building close by. In case of power failure in the building, data are stored in the datalogger for several weeks. Many of the sensors on the stations are redundant in case of equipment failure. For instance, temperature is measured at 1.5, 2.0, 9.5, and 10 m height. Data is collected every 3 seconds, but archived every minute.

**Acknowledgments**
- This works is supported by NOAA Award No. NA06NWS4680008
- The four existing weather stations were supported by NSF Award No. ATM-0239492.
- Much gratitude is due to James Finney for installation of the weather stations.

**USA Mesonet**
- Four existing sites and 23 proposed sites are displayed on the map to the left. All sites will be configured identically. A picture of one of the existing sites (Pascagoula) is shown at left as well as a schematic with labels identifying all sensors. The Agricola site became operational in August 2005, while the site at Pascagoula was installed in early spring 2005. The sites at Mount Vernon and Bay Minette were installed in the summer of 2006. A station on the lighthouse in the middle of Mobile Bay (Middle Bay Light) is a cooperative effort between the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and USA and became operational on 23 May 2005. The new sites will be installed before the 2007 hurricane season commences.
- Most sites are hosted by public schools, providing excellent maintenance and internet connectivity. Schools are rewarded with teacher training programs.

- Pascagoula, facing south

**Mesonet**

**Linux Cluster**
**and**
**Data servers**

**HWRF**

**High Performance Computing**
- A cluster of 36 nodes, each with  two IntelTM Xeon 5320 Quad Core Processors, 8MB Cache,
- 1.86GHz processor speed, 8GB RAM, 1066MHZ FSB, will be used to perform HWRF testing
- and validation, as well as hurricane landfall research simulations.
**Data Dissemination and Display**
- High capacity servers collect data from all mesonet sites every minute and store data in CSV
- format. Data is pushed hourly to MADIS (_[http://madis.noaa.gov/](http://madis.noaa.gov/)_) for archiving and realtime
- display in NWS AWIPS systems. A website with realtime display and downloadable archives
- will be available soon. Watch _[http://www.southalabama.edu/meteorology/links.html](http://www.southalabama.edu/meteorology/links.html)_ for updates.

**Ocean Observation Platforms**
- The offshore observation platforms will initially consist of three ADCP
- (see pictures at right) moorings offshore from coastal Alabama for the
- purpose of measuring surface wave spectra and coastal currents to
- observe shoaling of coastal waves from deep to shallow waters.
- NOAA P3 research flights will contribute additional observations of
- surface winds, direction wave spectra, ocean temperature and current
- profiles and low-level boundary layer wind structure to study the transition
- of the hurricane boundary layer from offshore to coastal counties during
- hurricane landfall. Concurrent airborne flux observations will be made
- with new P3 airborne turbulence instrumentation to assess the variability
- of air-sea fluxes in the coastal environment of landfalling hurricanes.
- This phase will focus on examination of the coastal air-sea processes
- that affect the complex interaction between the evolving coastal surface
- wind field and storm surge as hurricanes make landfall. We specifically
- address the task of providing initial and validation data sets on observed
- subsurface ocean structure, surface wind and wave fields and boundary
- layer structure for the evolving new-generation coupled hurricane
- intensity prediction models, specifically HWRF.

**HWRF**
- The HWRF is a coupled atmosphere-ocean-wave-land prediction system as shown at right.
- The wave coupling is a critical component of the HWRF to provide improved atmospheric-ocean
- boundary layer momentum fluxes for improved hurricane intensity and structure evolution in
- addition to providing improved wave prediction for coastal inundation. Much of the devastation
- caused along the coastlines of North Carolina during Isabel and along the Mississippi and
- Alabama coastlines during Katrina and Ivan was caused by the battering waves and in some
- cases the waves on top of the storm surge. The advancement of the HWRF wave component
- will be further developed to advance wave forecasts up to the coastline for coupling to storm
- surge models.
- Additionally, the HWRF land surface coupling is a critical modeling component to provide
- improved predictions of hurricane structure and related rainfall distribution through advanced
- modeling of boundary layer processes for landfalling storms. Through further coupling with
- stream routing and inundation models, the inland flooding problem will also be a critical component of the HWRF model development.