A multi-scale analysis of the rapid intensification of Hurricane Paloma (2008)

From the 7th to 8th of November 2008, Hurricane Paloma rapidly intensified from a category 1 to a category 4 Hurricane to become the second strongest November Atlantic hurricane on record. During the 36 h period commencing at 06 UTC 7 November when Paloma was a minimal category 1 Hurricane with winds of 65 kt until 18 UTC 8 November when Paloma had attained category 4 strength with winds of 125 kt, NOAA's Hurricane Research Division (HRD) conducted its first ever coordinated-rapid intensification experiment (RAPX). During the course of this experiment, NOAA P-3 aircraft collected Doppler data and released AXBTs to examine the atmospheric and upper-ocean structure in the inner-core, while both NOAA P-3 and G-IV aircraft deployed GPS dropsondes to sample the thermodynamic and kinematic conditions that were present in the inner-core and surrounding large-scale environment. In this poster, the unique dataset described above will be used both to document the evolution of the inner-core, large-scale, and upper-ocean during Paloma's RI, and to compare that observed evolution to that which was predicted by 3-D numerical models for the same time period.