Lower-Tropospheric Sampling Initiative (LTSI)
START DATE: MARCH 2025
STATUS: IN PROGRESS
The Gulf of America Weather Research Center (GAWRC) is currently working to build a 10,000-foot tethered instrument system to sample the 1000 mb-700 mb layer of the atmosphere. The primary goal of the initiative is to supplement the sparse network of weather balloon launches facilitated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) twice per day. This will provide valuable, real-time data to meteorologists forecasting severe weather, frozen precipitation, sea-breeze fronts and tropical cyclones by recording and releasing hourly changes in temperature, dew point, low-level wind shear, low-level lapse rates, barometric pressure, geopotential height, 0-3 km convective available potential energy (CAPE) and convective inhibition (CIN).
North Atlantic Rapid Intensification Model (NARIM)
START DATE: JULY 2026
STATUS: PLANNING PHASE
Season after season, tropical depressions initially forecasted to modestly strengthen rapidly intensify into major hurricanes that level communities and claim hundreds of lives. While NOAA’s National Hurricane Center (NHC) has made substantial progress in improving the error margin for tropical cyclone track forecasts, efforts to better predict a storm’s intensity multiple days in advance have been very sluggish. The GAWRC wants to change that unfortunate reality by developing the NARIM to make more accurate intensity forecasts than those currently made by the NHC. The NARIM will operate by utilizing the already very accurate track forecasts released by the NHC and assess how factors which are key to a cyclone’s intensification/decay rate including sea-surface temperature (SST), wind shear, moisture, and land interaction will change its intensity every six hours. Successful completion of the NARIM means stakeholders in coastal areas such as emergency services, community leaders, commercial enterprises and residents will no longer be caught off guard by a tropical cyclone strengthening beyond the initial NHC forecast and can make informed decisions to reduce the loss of life and property.