Coming soon: Cool new stuff coming from the National Hurricane Center
Posted by
cypresstx on 3/27/2013, 11:01 am
via SciGuy's blog http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2013/03/coming-soon-cool-new-stuff-coming-from-the-national-hurricane-center/ I think the watches/warnings on undeveloped systems is a fantastic addition
Coming soon: Cool new stuff coming from the National Hurricane Center
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
On Tuesday afternoon I had a chance to speak with Daniel Brown, a senior forecaster at the National Hurricane Center and its coordinator of warnings.
Brown was instrumental in the development of the hurricane center's graphical tropical weather outlook, which provides an overview of tropical activity anticipated within the next 48 hours. This is the product that shows areas of possible tropical development and assigns a percentage chance they will become a tropical depression or storm within two days.
I asked Brown what new products were coming this year and in subsequent years. Here's a short list:
Five-day tropical weather outlook: This is a similar idea to the current outlook, only it assigns probability that a certain area of disturbed weather will become a tropical depression or storm over a five-day period. This is likely to a separate product from the two-day outlook which will continue. Initially it will be a text product, Brown said, but later this season it should also appear in graphical form. (Status: Coming in 2013)
Watches and warnings for undeveloped systems: With some storms it is apparent they will develop into a tropical system, but by the time they eventually do such a system will be too close to land for the warning to have that much practical effect. An example is Hurricane Humberto, which rapidly developed off the Texas coast in 2007 before moving inland north of Galveston. To that end the hurricane center is experimenting with issuing advisories, watches and warnings for some systems that haven't yet become a tropical storm or hurricane. (Status: In testing, public debut in 2014 or 2015)
Six- and Seven-day forecasts: The hurricane center first issued four- and five-day forecasts in 2001, and accuracy has improved such that it is now testing the issuance of longer-range forecasts. But they are approaching this idea with some caution. As hurricane center director Rick Knabb noted on Tuesday, a six- or seven-day forecast of Hurricane Sandy last year would have shown the storm following harmless path out to sea. "That's something to think about," Knabb said. Still, these are coming. (Status: In testing, public debut in 2014 or 2015).
Storm surge warnings: At present hurricane watch and warning areas are based upon forecast wind criteria. For several years, however, hurricane scientists have been working on developing similar warnings based upon storm surge. As part of this they are developing a graphical forecast of storm surge rather than just text which would show expected levels of water inundation for locations in the warning area. This is a major product. (Status: In development, public debut in 2015)
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Coming soon: Cool new stuff coming from the National Hurricane Center - cypresstx, 3/27/2013, 11:01 am Post A Reply
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