Mesoscale Model Investigation of Ocean-Atmospheric Interactions and Intensity Change Associated with Hurricane Katrina Land Fall over Louisiana-Mississippi

The NCAR Weather Research Forecast Model (WRF) is used to study the role of surface fluxes including heat, momentum, and latent heat, which play a dominant role in the formation and Intensity change of hurricane Katrina. Katrina became a category 1 hurricane and made landfall on the Miami-Dade/Broward county line. After crossing South Florida and entering the Gulf of Mexico, Katrina began to strengthen reaching Category 5 on 28th August about 250 miles South- Southeast of the mouth of Mississippi river. Later Katrina turned to the Northwest and the north, making landfall in Plaque mines Parish, Louisiana just South of Buras with 140 mph winds as category 4 hurricane on 29th August. Mesoscale model simulations are used for forecasting and to receive better understanding of the structure and dynamics of hurricane activity. The model is run on a doubly nested domain centered over the central Gulf of Mexico, with grid spacing of 90 km and 30 km. WRF is run for 6 hr periods, from August 28th to August 30th. The model is capable of simulating the surface features associated with hurricane Katrina including strong heat and latent heat fluxes, intensity change and hurricane track.