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Article Series: Hurricanes
Hurricane Facts, Tips and Safety Protocols
Hurricane
Forecasting Techniques
A
hurricane is nothing more than a tropical storm that has
increased dramatically in wind speed and impact
on the coastal regions it will affect. Yet countless human
lives have been lost because of the speed with which these
storms have moved, and the sometimes unanticipated consequences
these storms bring with them. For this reason, scientists and
meteorologists have worked long and hard hours to accomplish
a fine-tuning of hurricane forecasting techniques to give people
as much time and opportunity as possible to evacuate their
homes if necessary.
At this point in time scientists have been able to track the
storms from their beginnings over the open sea to their time
of landfall. The storm tracking is done by satellite and is
considered to be fairly accurate. The same can be said for
the categorizing of the hurricanes which was a major breakthrough
in 1969 when a scale was devised that would actually give people
a chance to understand in clear terms the kind of damage they
might be looking at once the hurricane made landfall.
What critics are pointing out now is the fact that once a
hurricane has indeed made landfall, there is precious little
forecasting that is being done. Scientists have not been able
to determine the amount of rainfall that is likely to occur.
Similarly, the possibility of tornadoes – while quite realistic
– is still not subject to prediction but instead is considered
to be one of the by-products of the storm itself.
Of course, scientists are not sitting on their hands but instead
they are working tirelessly to get more information about the
brewing storms, so as to help forecast the whole of the storm
from formation, through landfall, to the final dissipation
of the weather pattern. Some steps that are being taken are
actually quite dangerous, yet have yielded amazing results.
Volunteer scientists are flying instrumented aircrafts into
the very hurricanes themselves in an effort to garner more
data from inside the storms. Others flew their crafts into
the eye of the storm, or simply circled the storm to gain new
measurements. While this may sound a bit redundant, especially
in light of the fact that satellites are already taking pictures
of the storms, it is important to remember that satellite images
are only as reliable as the data they transmit, and considering
that the satellites only pass over an area a few times a day,
the information they transmit is valuable, but not always up
to date.
The instrumented crafts the scientists are now using to get
an up close and personal look at the storms also provide details,
such as cloud patterns and speed data from within the cloud
formations themselves, which so far have been missing. It is
anticipated that this data will yield valuable information
especially after the storm makes landfall.
Since some of the hurricanes, which were thusly studied actually
made landfall, the data that was gathered could now be used
to extrapolate potentials for inland flooding as well as coastal
flooding patterns. In the same vein, the data is being used
to find out possible correlations between the weakening of
the storm and the length of time it spends on land.
Already scientists have pointed out that the actual precipitation
emanating from the storm after landfall has been shown as a
reliable tool to forecast the intensity of the storm.
On the other side of the coin, scientists had also found that
some data they had taken for granted was in fact not as cut
and dried as they had hoped, since it appears that the altitude
of the storm also affects its patterns.
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by SolveYourProblem.com
: 2007
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