A sprawling research program aims to improve hurricane forecasts by collecting data at the chaotic interface of ocean and atmosphere.
On 10 September, a US Navy P-3 Orion aircraft chased down Hurricane Francine, then building strength in the Gulf of Mexico. As the plane flew low over the water, helmeted crewmembers known as “warlocks” heaved more than a dozen scientific buoys out of an open door. This was the latest mission in a program to improve hurricane forecasts by collecting real-time data at the tumultuous interface of ocean and atmosphere.
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| Hurricane Francine formed in the Gulf of Mexico in September 2024 NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) |
“It gives you a window into the storm that you otherwise can’t see,” says Isabel Houghton at Sofar Ocean in California, a marine data company that designed many of the buoys being dropped ahead of hurricanes.
The main goal of the research program is to make more accurate predictions of how hurricanes will impact coastal communities. Buoy measurements can help select the best forecasts of a hurricane’s path, intensity and flooding potential as the storm approaches, as well as testing the accuracy of forecasts afterwards.
“Oftentimes, our estimates of what is happening right now are incorrect,” says Houghton. Data from the buoys, airdropped over the ocean in the short window before the storm hits, can give forecasters a more accurate picture by capturing details that are obscured to satellites or even aircraft flying through storms.
Hurricane Francine, which made landfall in Louisiana on the evening of 11 September, was the fourth storm for which buoys were deployed since 2022, and the first to have data delivered directly to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center. Most of the 16 buoys drifted on the surface, measuring wave height, temperature, pressure and wind speed. A few experimental buoys sank to the bottom to measure waves from a stable point below.
A last-minute change in the storm’s path meant a number of buoys missed the mark, but one floated directly through the eye of the storm, recording waves 9 metres high, says Jim Thomson at the University of Washington. “If we were bowling it was kind of like a spare,” he says.
Thomson’s research group is using the buoy data to study interactions between hurricanes and the waves they generate. This is key to predicting how the waves will combine with storm surge to drive flooding; it will also help researchers understand how waves influence the storm itself. By changing the amount of drag the sea surface puts on the atmosphere, they may increase the wind speed and reduce the mixing in the ocean that injects heat to fuel the storm.
Current hurricane forecasts don’t capture this interaction between waves and air – but the buoys can. “In the absence of perfect prediction, some real time measurement is always a damn good idea,” says Thomson.