SHARE:
Research
In the Name of Science
Surges: Sallenger, of U.S. Geological Survey, is working on using airborne radar surveying to predict storm surge erosion prior to a storm's landfall. It would help in evacuation planning and in siting buildings before construction. Keqi Zhang and Chengyou Xiao at FIU and others around the state also are at work on storm surge forecasting.
Forrest Masters uses data from portable towers to determine actual wind speeds at ground level.
Reefs: Pamela Hallock Muller, University of South Florida, is measuring the ecological and economic effects of people and hurricanes on the state's coral reefs.
Costs: FIU scientists Hugh Willoughby and Stephen Leatherman are studying the cost of hurricane warnings. Separately, economists Michael Thomas at Florida A&M University and David Letson at the University of Miami plan to survey and study the public's response to hurricane forecasts to hopefully help federal forecasters decide which area of improved forecasting -- for example, storm surge, wind intensity, direction -- would give them the most bang for the buck.
Forecasting:
Shuyi Chen at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science will spend the 2005 season on what the school calls the "largest airborne hurricane field program ever put together," studying how rain bands affect hurricane intensity. It could lead to forecasting intensity changes. The school's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing has a forecasting system for hurricane winds, waves and surge that's expected to pass to the National Hurricane Center and U.S. Navy.
T.N. Krishnamurti's Superensemble "provided the best guidance for both track and intensity in the Atlantic," according to the National Hurricane Center.T.N. Krishnamurti continues to improve the Florida State University Superensemble, a program that takes others' forecasts and adjusts for their historic errors to make an improved consensus forecast. Improvements at the National Weather Service and elsewhere should improve the FSU Superensemble. Individual forecasting models have their day in the sun, but the FSU Superensemble "provided the best guidance for both track and intensity in the Atlantic," the National Hurricane Center concluded in February. "However," the center reported, "this model generally arrives after the forecast has been made, limiting its usefulness in the forecast process."
Wind damage:
Since 1999, structural engineer Forrest Masters has intercepted 16 named storms to gather data on their wind speeds. Masters, 28, works on the Florida Coastal Monitoring program, a collaboration of the International Hurricane Research Center at FIU, the University of Florida, Clemson University, the Florida Institute of Technology and the Institute for Business & Home Safety in Tampa. Data from his wind towers and homes are used by the Tropical Prediction Center, hurricane researchers and the National Weather Service to verify forecasts and warn the public. Masters, director of FIU's lab for wind engineering research, uses the data to determine actual wind speeds near the ground rather than extrapolations from measurements higher up. The goal is to reduce damage to homes by finding out how those winds, whether coming across open ground or channeled through subdivisions, affect structures.
Kurt Gurley, University of Florida civil engineering professor, is leading a Florida Building Commission-sponsored engineering survey to determine how much better homes built under the newer Florida Building Code performed than homes built from 1994 to 2002 under the old Standard Building Code. Gurley is also a collaborator on the Florida Coastal Monitoring program.
Mitigation: Timothy Reinhold, the researcher who initiated the Florida Coastal Monitoring project, left Clemson University in 2004 to enhance the research arm of the Tampa-based Institute for Business & Home Safety. Reinhold, a key player still in wind-research, won the National Hurricane Conference's Outstanding Achievement Award in Mitigation in March. He helped prevent a weakening in wind protection in the state building code last year for homes in the state's interior.
