25th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology

P1.24

Examining the Eight-Day Evolution of Upper Level Winds in Hurricane Floyd

John A. Knaff, NOAA/CIRA/Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO; and C. S. Velden

New procedures for requesting super rapid scan operations (SRSO) or one-minute imagery from the NOAA geostationary operational environmental satellites in 1999 allowed for requests for data on consecutive days. This produced a very detailed and unprecedented satellite dataset of Hurricane Floyd. Eight days consecutive of two hours or more of SRSO data were collected for Floyd, covering its development from tropical storm to intense hurricane (8 September - 15 September). Using the cloud motions captured on these time scales very detailed wind fields can be produced using a modified version of the high-density wind code at the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS). The CIMSS wind code is unique in that it cannot only track cloud motions, but also assigns pressure levels to these motions. The characteristics of upper-level winds associated with respect to intensity and structure changes over this eight-day period as observed by aircraft and satellite reconnaissance will be evaluated. Specifically, we strive to answer the following questions. What wind field changes lead intensity change? How does convection relate to upper level wind accelerations and evolution, particularly the tangential wind?

extended abstract  Extended Abstract (44K)

Poster Session 1, Tropical Cyclones, Large-scale Dynamics and Convection
Monday, 29 April 2002, 11:00 AM-12:30 PM

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