NOAA RESEARCH RADAR CAPTURES IMAGES OF HURRICANE LILI AT LANDFALL

October 4, 2002 — Using state-of-the-art equipment, including a radar collaboratively built by the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, research scientists captured Hurricane Lili Thursday morning as she came onshore along the southern Louisiana coast. Three mobile Doppler radars, as well several instrumented towers, were strategically placed near Lafayette, La., in order to study the structure of the rainfall and wind flow around the storm. The data collected may help scientists develop better estimates of rainfall amounts, which could lead to more accurate and timely forecasts of inland flooding in the future. (Click NOAA radar image for larger view of Hurricane Lili captured at landfall Oct. 3, 2002, at 10:54 a.m. EDT. Click here for high resolution version, which is a large file. Please credit "NOAA.")

One of the Doppler radars was the new SMART-Radar, Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research & Teaching Radar, built by four partners, NSSL, University of Oklahoma, Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University. Using a wave-length of 5 cm, the SMART-Radar is able to see completely through the heavy rainbands in storms such as hurricanes, providing a more accurate picture of rainfall and winds in the storm. The mobile capability enables the radar to move in and closely observe storms, providing an advantage over fixed-site radars.

Tim Doggett, of Texas Tech University, coordinated the SMART-radar during the storm for a study sponsored by TTU’s Wind Science and Engineering Research Center.

The other two radars were the University of Oklahoma’s Doppler on Wheels, operated by Josh Wurman. These are 3 cm radars, which have been used primarily to study tornadoes in the Great Plains.

For the first time, the three radars were deployed to collect data simultaneously. They tracked the center of Hurricane Lili for about six hours as she moved inland, recording wind speed and direction and estimating rainfall amounts in an approximately 100-square-mile area.

Data from all of the radars and the fixed instrumented towers will be combined together to provide a more complete picture of the structure and intensity of Hurricane Lili as the storm moved inland. The knowledge generated by the analysis of the radar and tower data can be used to help emergency managers, structural engineers and weather forecasters mitigate the loss of property and life from future landfalling tropical storms and hurricanes.

Relevant Web Sites
SMART-Radar imagery of Hurricane Lili

SMART-Radar

NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory

Texas Tech University’s Wind Science and Engineering Research Center

University of Oklahoma Doppler on Wheels

Texas A&M University Department of Atmospheric Sciences

Media Contact:
Keli Tarp, NOAA Severe Storms Lab, Norman, Okla., (405) 366-0451