National Hurricane Center to Implement New Hurricane-Tracking Technique

Citation

(2008), "National Hurricane Center to Implement New Hurricane-Tracking Technique", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 17 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2008.07317eab.001

National Hurricane Center to Implement New Hurricane-Tracking Technique

Article Type: News items From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 17, Issue 5

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) plans to implement a new technique that will help forecasters continuously monitor land-falling hurricanes, giving frequent, detailed images of a storm’s location. The new system was developed by National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, and the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) in Washington, DC The technique, known as Vortex Objective Radar Tracking and Circulation (VORTRAC), was successfully tested by the NHC last year. Relying on existing Doppler radars along the US coast, VORTRAC provides details on hurricane winds and central pressure every six minutes, indicating whether the storm is gathering strength in the final hours before reaching shore. The system can use radar data to calculate the barometric pressure at the center of a hurricane, a key measure of its intensity. To monitor the winds of a land-falling hurricane, forecasters currently rely on aircraft to drop instrument packages into the storm to gather data on winds and pressure. But due to flight logistics, the aircraft can take readings no more than every few hours, which means coastal communities may not be swiftly alerted to changes in approaching hurricanes. VORTRAC may also help improve long-range hurricane forecasts by using data from airborne Doppler radars or space-based radars to produce detailed information about a hurricanes far out to sea. Rapidly intensifying storms can catch vulnerable coastal areas by surprise. In 2004, parts of Florida’s southwest coast were caught unprepared when Hurricane Charley’s top winds increased from 110 to 145 miles per hour in just six hours as the storm neared land.

For more information, see www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2008/vortrac.jsp