1. August- September NSF NOAA NRL NCAR UW UM AGU, San Francisco, 12 December 2006

2. KatrinaOpheliaRita Hurricanes investigated in RAINEX

3. Motivation for RAINEX Understanding Rapid Intensity Changes

5. How do interactions of environment, eyewalls & rainbands in the mature storm… … lead to intensity changes like these? rainband Intensity change problem: Intensity of Katrina (2005) Max Wind Speed (knots) 242528262927 August Willoughby 88

6. High-Resolution Multi-nested Vortex-Following Numerical Models at University of Miami: UM/RSMAS Coupled Atmos- Wave-Ocean Model 15 km 1.6 km 5 km Mini ensemble MM5 and WRF forecasts using GFS, NOGAPS, CMC, and GFDL forecast fields as initial and lateral boundary conditions Courtesy S. Chen

7. RitaKatrina Model forecast of eyewall & rainbands at 1.6 km resolution Rain rate Courtesy S. Chen

8. Distance from vortex center Day RainWind Katrina Courtesy S. Chen

9. Rita Rain Wind Rain Distance from vortex center Day Courtesy S. Chen

10. Targeted

11. RAINEX Flight Coordination ELDORA radar

12. Katrina

13. Katrina-28 August ELDORA data Barnes et al. ‘ 83 NRL

14. Katrina-28 August Confirms “ Barnes ” structure

15. Rita

16. RAINEX Flights in Hurricane Rita Cat. 5Concentric Eyewalls Sheared

17. Concentric eyewalls in Rita Unprecedented

18. Sample cross section through eyewalls of Rita Horizontal Distance (km)  Height (km)  Eye

19. Dropsonde in the “ moat ” region 1802 UTC 22 September ‘05 Rita-22 September

20. ELDORA observations of vorticity in the eyewalls Maybe first observation of “ axisymmetrization ”

21. Vorticity ELDORA observations of the inner eyewall EyeVorticity This has been called “ turbo-boosting ” of the eyewall Eye Heitht (km) warm air Vortex on eyewall

22. Inner eyewallOuter eyewall Turbo-boosting Eye Moat formation 2ndary eyewall taking over Courtesy Michael Bell Composite of all ELDORA data

23. Data Availability

24. KatrinaOpheliaRita Three important storms observed Innovative satellite-based flight control First use of ELDORA in hurricanes Data available via NCAR field catalog Operations and data analysis aided by high-resolution modeling RAINEX Technical Accomplishments

25. Formation of “ moat ” documented during eyewall replacement in Rita ELDORA shows high wave no. vorticity pattern in 2ndary eyewall ELDORA confirms internal structure of rainband in Katrina High-res. model captures eyewall replacement in Rita RAINEX Science Directions

26. Thanks