HEDAS Analyses of Intense Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Patricia

Four category-5 hurricanes in the Atlantic (Matthew, Irma, Maria) and East Pacific (Patricia) were sampled by aircraft reconnaissance during the 2016 and 2017 hurricane seasons. Flights into these systems were conducted during the intensification, mature, and decay stages of their lifecycles, providing an opportunity to investigate the mechanisms by which these extreme storms undergo intensity and structural changes.

The Hurricane Ensemble Data Assimilation System (HEDAS) is a state-of-the art data assimilation system designed specifically for inclusion of aircraft data into the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast (HWRF) model. HEDAS has been upgraded to use the most recent community version of the model system, to include satellite-based data, and run on multiple processors. No category-5 hurricanes have been sampled by aircraft since 2007, before the advent of high-resolution data assimilation methods for tropical cyclones. This study will show the first-ever analyses of high-resolution data in extremely intense hurricanes; structural and intensity changes during the lifecycles of these storms will be discussed.