A view of tropical cyclones from above: The Tropical Cyclone Intensity Experiment

Tropical cyclone (TC) outflow and its relationship to TC intensity change and structure were investigated in the Office of Naval Research Tropical Cyclone Intensity (TCI) field program during 2015 using dropsondes deployed from the innovative new High-Definition Sounding System (HDSS) and remotely sensed observations from the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (HIRAD), both on board the NASA WB-57 that flew in the lower stratosphere. Three noteworthy hurricanes were intensively observed with unprecedented horizontal resolution: Joaquin in the Atlantic and Marty and Patricia in the eastern North Pacific. Nearly 800 dropsondes were deployed from the WB-57 flight level of approximate to 60,000 ft (approximate to 18 km), recording atmospheric conditions from the lower stratosphere to the surface, while HIRAD measured the surface winds in a 50-km-wide swath with a horizontal resolution of 2 km. Dropsonde transects with 4-10-km spacing through the inner cores of Hurricanes Patricia, Joaquin, and Marty depict the large horizontal and vertical gradients in winds and thermodynamic properties. An innovative technique utilizing GPS positions of the HDSS reveals the vortex tilt in detail not possible before. In four TCI flights over Joaquin, systematic measurements of a major hurricane's outflow layer were made at high spatial resolution for the first time. Dropsondes deployed at 4-km intervals as the WB-57 flew over the center of Hurricane Patricia reveal in unprecedented detail the inner-core structure and upper-tropospheric outflow associated with this historic hurricane. Analyses and numerical modeling studies are in progress to understand and predict the complex factors that influenced Joaquin's and Patricia's unusual intensity changes.

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Related Dataset #1 : ONR Tropical Cyclone Intensity 2015 NASA WB-57 HDSS Dropsonde Data. Version 1.0
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Copyright 2017 American Meteorological Society (AMS).
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Author Doyle, James D.
Moskaitis, Jonathan R.
Feldmeier, Joel W.
Ferek, Ronald J.
Beaubien, Mark
Bell, Michael M.
Cecil, Daniel L.
Creasey, Robert L.
Duran, Patrick
Elsberry, Russell L.
Komaromi, William A.
Molinari, John
Ryglicki, David R.
Stern, Daniel P.
Velden, Christopher S.
Wang, Xuguang
Allen, Todd
Barrett, Bradford S.
Black, Peter G.
Dunion, Jason P.
Emanuel, Kerry A.
Harr, Patrick A.
Harrison, Lee
Hendricks, Eric A.
Herndon, Derrick
Jeffries, William Q.
Majumdar, Sharanya J.
Moore, James A.
Pu, Zhaoxia
Rogers, Robert F.
Sanabia, Elizabeth R.
Tripoli, Gregory J.
Zhang, Da-Lin
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2017-10-01T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
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Topic Category geoscientificInformation
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Metadata Date 2023-08-18T19:15:44.665969
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:21160
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Doyle, James D., Moskaitis, Jonathan R., Feldmeier, Joel W., Ferek, Ronald J., Beaubien, Mark, Bell, Michael M., Cecil, Daniel L., Creasey, Robert L., Duran, Patrick, Elsberry, Russell L., Komaromi, William A., Molinari, John, Ryglicki, David R., Stern, Daniel P., Velden, Christopher S., Wang, Xuguang, Allen, Todd, Barrett, Bradford S., Black, Peter G., Dunion, Jason P., Emanuel, Kerry A., Harr, Patrick A., Harrison, Lee, Hendricks, Eric A., Herndon, Derrick, Jeffries, William Q., Majumdar, Sharanya J., Moore, James A., Pu, Zhaoxia, Rogers, Robert F., Sanabia, Elizabeth R., Tripoli, Gregory J., Zhang, Da-Lin. (2017). A view of tropical cyclones from above: The Tropical Cyclone Intensity Experiment. UCAR/NCAR - Library. http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d73t9ks3. Accessed 21 June 2025.

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