NOAA Tests New Lidar Technology to Improve Data on Hurricane Track and Intensity

摘要

Hurricane Hunters equipped with the new lidar flew over the Florida peninsula, the southeast US coast during Tropical Storm Elsa and the western Gulf of Mexico. Scientists are interested in including Microdop as part of future P-3 hurricane season instrument packages to measure different regions of hurricanes, such as relatively rain-free zones outside a storm's inner core and the very lowest parts of the atmosphere near the ocean surface called the hurricane boundary layer, where other instruments do not routinely gather wind data.