Research

The chaotic, swirling winds above the ocean as a tropical cyclone develops play a key role in how strong a storm might be when it reaches land; however, our understanding of the turbulence characteristics in high-wind conditions is limited, mostly due to the very scarce in-situ observations under such extreme conditions. To address this issue, this project uses turbulence-resolving large-eddy simulations to develop better boundary layer parameterizations for hurricane forecasts.

Predicting the behavior of early‐stage tropical cyclones under moderate‐to‐high vertical wind shear remains a global challenge, particularly in determining whether a storm will undergo rapid intensification in the presence of shear. This project aims to understand the interplay between boundary-layer and vortex-scale processes that contribute to those "surprising" (rapid) intensification events.

Leveraging a novel turbulence-resolving modeling framework and in-situ observations (from platforms like UAH MAPNet and the NEXRAD network)  to pursue a better understanding of the wind hazards related to hurricane landfalls. 

Tropical cyclone tornadoes can cause devastating damage before and during TC landfalls [Image above gives an example of Hurricane Ian (2022)]. This project will investigate how boundary layer dynamics contribute to TC tornadogenesis by analyzing VORTEX-SE observations and high-resolution numerical modeling output.