Overview of Efforts to Transition NOAA Hurricane Hunter Aircraft Data into Operations during the 2018 Hurricane Field Program—Intensity Forecast Experiment

Each year, NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) Hurricane Research Division (HRD), in partnership with the NWS/National Hurricane Center, NCEP/Environmental Modeling Center, and NOAA/National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), conducts a Hurricane Field Program (HFP), the Intensity Forecast Experiment (IFEX). The experiment leverages the NOAA P-3 and G-IV hurricane hunter aircraft, operated by NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO) Aircraft Operations Center (AOC). The goals of IFEX focus on using observations to improve numerical forecasts, developing and refining measurement technologies, and improving understanding of the physical processes involved in tropical cyclone intensity change. This talk summarizes HFP-IFEX activities during the 2018 season, and will specifically highlight some of the ongoing efforts between these groups to transition aircraft data collected from the P-3 and G-IV into an operational environment. These efforts include the transmission of high-resolution (BUFR format) dropsonde data to the Global Telecommunications System (GTS) for data assimilation, assimilation of P-3 and G-IV tail Doppler radar (TDR) velocity data, as well as inner core dropsonde observations, into the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model, real-time validation of NUCAPS soundings, and the real-time availability of TDR and dropsonde data in AWIPS-II.