Overview of UAHuntsville ground-based observations of landfalling Hurricane Irene (2011)

The University of Alabama in Huntsville's Mobile Integrated Profiling System (MIPS) was deployed near the Newport/Morehead City National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office for the duration of the landfall of Hurricane Irene (2011). The MIPS collected data from about 22 UTC 26 August to 18 UTC 27 August and provides a unique perspective of the structure of the storm at landfall. Instrumentation on board included a very high resolution vertically-pointing X-band radar, 915 MHz Doppler radar wind profiler, 12-channel microwave profiling radiometer, ceilometer, and an array of surface instruments for temperature, moisture, and wind speed and direction. This presentation will give an overview of data collected from this multifaceted platform during Irene's landfall, highlighting noteworthy structures in the vertical motion field of the storm, observations of distinct eyewall mesovortices that formed during landfall, and boundary layer structures that passed over the MIPS location. Also, because the MIPS was nearly collocated with the KMHX 88-D radar (upgraded to dual-pol capabilities prior to the Irene event), data from that platform will also be used in this amalgamated look at Irene.