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Courtesy of NASA
Hurricane Season Has Begun
News story originally written on August 24, 2001
Hurricane season is upon us! Already this year, three tropical storms have reared their ugly heads in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Tropical Storms Allison, Barry and Chantal have dissipated already without significant damage to life or property, but more storms are likely to come!Hurricane season is here! You may have heard of Tropical Storms Allison, Barry and Chantal. They were storms the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. They didn't do much damage to life or property, but more storms are likely to come!
This year, NASA will be meeting hurricane season head-on! The 4th of a series of field investigations called CAMEX (Convection And Moisture EXperiment) will run August 16-September 24, 2001, during the height of hurricane season. During this CAMEX investigation, NASA will use aircraft (NASA planes ER-2 and DC-8), unpiloted aerial vehicles, satellite observations, ground-based radar, and other ground-based sensing instruments to collect data that will greatly improve hurricane modeling and prediction. By using all of these different types of vehicles and ground-based instruments, CAMEX will be monitoring each storm from near sea level to about 65,000 feet all at the same time.
"One reason NASA studies hurricanes is to understand the best way to use information from NASA resources, such as its satellites, to provide better warnings to the American public and people around the world affected by hurricanes," said Robbie Hood, CAMEX mission scientist. Hood continued, "During the last CAMEX mission in 1998, we flew over hurricanes and collected a vast amount of data, sampling the hurricanes' upper regions at altitudes of 35,000 feet (10,600 meters) or higher. This year, we're asking ourselves additional questions, such as, 'How does a hurricane intensify?' and 'What is its rainfall potential after it comes to shore?' The highest number of hurricane-related deaths are due to inland flooding, so inland rainfall is something we will be monitoring very closely."
During CAMEX-4, planes will be darting in and out of hurricanes while satellites from above and radars from below look on...hopefully, great strides will be made so that hurricanes won't be such a threat to coastal cities. Although the primary purpose of CAMEX-4 is to study hurricanes, the study will also look at thunderstorms,
precipitation systems, and atmospheric water vapor profiles.
