Latest News
June 1, 2008
The first of two mobile Ka-band Doppler radars is nearing completion and should begin preliminary testing in early July. TTU Ka-1 is the first of two radars funded by the Office of the Vice President for Research at Texas Tech. It will be the first mobile Ka-Band Doppler weather radar in the world. The system will be available for hurricane deployments during the latter half of the 2008 Hurricane Season; however funding for deployments has not been secured yet. The two radars are specifical designed to study boundary layer flows in a variety of conditions; drylines, tornadoes, boundaries in the local storm environment, hurricane wind fields, stable bounday layer flows, and wind turbine wake effects. Construction on TTU-Ka 2 should begin the following year.
TS Arthur becomes first tropical system of the 2008 Atlantic Season.
March 26, 2008
WEMITE #1 was deployed at Lubbock International Airport during the week of March 24-28 in support of an experiment being conducted by Wind Science and Engineering Graduate Student, Rolando Vega. The tower was deployed near the NWS ASOS station in order to collect high resolution wind data. The high sampling rate will allow for a characterization of the surface roughness lengths at the ASOS station in order to properly standardize extreme wind records at LIA, given varying fetches. Vega is conducting analysis for extreme wind events in Lubbock using data from the Reese West Texas Mesonet Station and the LIA ASOS station. WEMITE #2 will be deployed March 27th and 28th at the Reese Technology Center field site in support of the experiment. The WEMITE towers have been used outside of the hurricane environment before. In 2002 and 2003 they were deployed at the Reese Technology Center field site as part of an observing array designed to sample thunderstorm outflow winds.
December 2007
The construction of Texas Tech's first mobile Ka-band radar is set to begin as the two radar trucks have arrived. Testing of the electronic and signal processing components continues. The two radar systems were funded by a multi-million dollar grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research at Texas Tech University They will be the first mobile Ka-band weather radars in the world. Testing of the first of two radar systems should begin during the fall of 2008 with the second radar to be completed within the following year. The radars will be used to observe and document a variety of boundary layer flows including: local storm boundaries, tornadoes, hurricane boundary layer roll structures, wind turbine turbulent wake structures, and nocturnal boundary layer flows.
Upgrades to the Wind Science and Engineering facility at the Reese Technology Center also continues. A new door and ramp system was installed to allow for the indoor storage of the new radar systems as well as the rest of the mobile instrument platforms. This will allow for easier maintenance and construction of new and existing field research equipment. The improvements will allow the facility to serve as one of five maintenance depots for the Vortex 2 Field Research Project to be conducted during the springs of 2009 and 2010. The facility also contains a new multi-fan tornado vortex simulator and is home to the West Texas Mesonet . Also located within the two building campus is the debris impact testing facility.
Infrared Satellite Image of Sub-tropical Storm Olga. Image Courtesy of NOAA
Tropical Storm Olga developed just off the northeast coast of Puerto Rico, first as a subtropical system. Olga eventually became a tropical cyclone and dumped large amounts of rainfall on the Dominican Republic. Wind shear eventually weakened Olga and it de-generated into an open wave. However, the low-level circulation remained intact and clearly discernable on visible satellite imagery. Olga became the 11th tropical cyclone to form in the month of December.
2007 marked the second season in row which TTUHRT did not deploy for a landfalling cyclone. The United States experienced only 1 hurricane landfall, which was Humberto, as it intensified rapidly from a weak tropical disturbance to a category 1 hurricane in 24 hrs, making landfall near High Island, TX. Tropical Storm Noel, although it did not make landfall in the United States, coupled with a strong ridge of high pressure to the north led to strong onshore flow and substantial coastal errosion and flooding along the east coast of Florida.
2007 saw 14 named storms with 6 hurricanes, 2 of which reached category 5 status (Felix and Dean). Both Felix and Dean each made landfall with Dean causing extreme damage along the southern portion of Mexico's Yucatan penninsula. The season fell slightly below the forecast put forth by both NOAA and Colorado State University. The 2007 season was characterized by a strong ridge of high pressure during July and August located across a large portion of the tropical Atlantic. This resulted in most systems being steered due westward across the Atlantic. The synoptic pattern shifted substantially as the climatological peak of the season arrived in September as a trough developed over the eastern US, resulting in recurvature of several systems into the open Atlantic. The Gulf of Mexico and the western Caribbean, as was the case in 2006, were quiet as development regions.
TTUHRT still has not deployed the new Stick-Net platforms into a landfalling tropical cyclone. These new probes will substantialy increase our ability to document the surface wind field of landfalling tropical cyclones. We continue to be dedicated to mitigating the effects of landfalling tropical cyclones on life and property.
