Preliminary Results from the August 2017 East Pacific Origins and Characteristics of Hurricanes (EPOCH) Field Campaign

As part of the NASA HOPE Training Opportunity, the EPOCH Project proposed to fly the AV-6 Global Hawk (GH) aircraft with the X-band high altitude RADar (EXRAD), the High Altitude MMIC Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR), and the NOAA AVAPS dropsonde system to investigate genesis and rapid intensification of an East Pacific hurricane by sampling both the environment and interior structures. While originally funded for one science flight to demonstrate the successful integration of the EXRAD radar onto the GH, EPOCH blossomed into a six science flight field campaign spanning the East Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, and East Coast of the United States with three additional science flights contributed by the NOAA UAS Program. This talk will provide information on the EPOCH Project and field campaign to take place from 1-30 August 2017 and provide preliminary views of data fresh from the field.