Highlights of Global Hawk HIWRAP Radar Measurements During NOAA SHOUT Hurricane Flights

NOAA conducted the Sensing of Hazards with Operational Unmanned Technology (SHOUT) program in the past few years using the unmanned NASA Global Hawk to demonstrate the value of using near real-time data for high-impact weather prediction such as hurricanes. In the 2015 and 2016 hurricane seasons, the Global Hawk AV-6 was instrumented with the NASA conical scanning High-altitude Imaging Wind and Rain Airborne Profiler (HIWRAP), the High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), and the Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS). HIWRAP worked well during 2016 and provided some real-time reflectivity imagery during the flights. The focus of this presentation will be on data collected from HIWRAP from the 2016 hurricane flights. HIWRAP is a dual-frequency Ku-/Ka-band down-looking conical scan radar that images reflectivity 3D winds below the Global Hawk. HIWRAP observations have previously been used for data assimilation and one of the long term goals of this effort is to provide data sets in near real-time for this purpose. In this presentation, we will show preliminary results from a) 3D winds from Hurricane Matthew (2016) on 7 October while the storm was off the Florida east coast near the Melbourne, FL WSR-88D, b) initial ocean surface wind retrievals from Hurricane Matthew on 10 October 2016, and c) future plans for data analysis and the HIWRAP instrument. The Matthew flight had interesting inner core features that suggest the presence of Vortex Rossby Waves. The ocean wind retrievals have not been a priority for HIWRAP in previous flights since the focus has been on 3D winds within precipitation regions.