65th IHC Booklet/Program (pdf - 4.9MB) - Office of the Federal ...

WISDOM Intensity Program – Weather Hurricane In-situ Sea Surface Probe (WHISSP)
Justyna Nicinska, Russell B. Chadwick, Randy Johnson,
(justyna.nicinska@noaa.gov)
Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR)/NOAA
The WISDOM Intensity program is a new research effort based in the Office of Oceanic and
Atmospheric Research (OAR) with the aim of developing observing platforms capable of
delivering continuous data within the eye of a tropical cyclone. At present data collection in the
eye of a hurricane is limited. The WISDOM effort was inspired by the successful Aeroclipper
design led by CNES in which two models were entrained into a tropical cyclone in the Indian
Ocean and collected data for over a week. OAR/WISDOM aims to develop a low cost platform
capable of collecting continuous observations for days in the eye of a hurricane including central
pressure, wind speed, wind direction and air temperature. One of several possible approaches
towards developing a simple and low-cost version of a platform for collecting data in the eye of a
storm is the Weather/Hurricane In-situ Sea Surface Probe (WHISSP). This presentation will
describe the simple wind model developed to assess a surface craft’s ability to become entrained
in a tropical cyclone as well as results from an initial proof of concept study conducted by
OAR/WISDOM, where four experimental WHISSP models were tested in the field. Results of
this study as well as future development plans will be discussed.
Session 4 – Page 3