Description:

Recent years have featured multiple, high-impact tropical cyclones that underwent rapid intensification (RI), defined as an increase in the maximum sustained wind speed of at least 30 knots in 24 hours, prior to making landfall. Examples of such storms include Hurricanes Harvey and Maria (2017), Michael (2018), and Dorian (2019) in the North Atlantic, Hurricane Willa (2018) in the eastern North Pacific, Typhoon Hagibis (2019) in the western North Pacific, and Cyclone Fani (2019) in the North Indian Ocean. Each of these tropical cyclones underwent RI and severely impacted the lives and economic well-being of coastal communities. Accurately predicting RI remains a challenging forecast problem and is a top priority at the National Hurricane Center. This forecast challenge serves as motivation for this session – to better understand the state-of-the art research on RI. A better understanding of why RI occurs may result in more accurate forecasts and increased warning lead time, giving emergency personnel and residents more time to prepare and make evacuation decisions before a hurricane makes landfall.

This session invites modeling, observational, and theoretical perspectives, as well as novel methodological approaches (e.g., artificial intelligence), focusing on RI. Abstracts are especially encouraged focusing on the following topics:

• Environmental and convective processes associated with RI
• RI despite marginal environmental conditions (e.g., moderate vertical wind shear, dry air in the near-environment)
• Processes governing the predictability of RI
• RI in a changing climate
• Societal impacts of RI