OU SMART Radar Team to Cover Hurricane Matthew

The OU SMART radar team consisting of Dr. Mike Biggerstaff, PhD student Addison Alford, and Research Associate Gordon Carrie are deploying a mobile C-band dual- polarimetric radar and four PIPS (Portable Integrated Precipitation Sensors) that measure winds, temperature, pressure and rain drop sizes to the eastern US to intercept Hurricane Matthew.

OU is part of the Digital Hurricane Consortium, a collection of university and federal scientists who coordinate data collection during landfalling hurricanes.  The deployment is also coordinated through the disaster impacts assessment plan (DIAP), a federal response to Superstorm Sandy, organized by NOAA, and coordinated with the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

Addison Alford, under Dr. Biggerstaff’s direction, received a NASA Fellowship to study hurricanes. They plan to focus on the evolution of hurricane rainbands that lead to inland flooding, the source of the majority of lost lives in the US from hurricanes.  It will be the eighth mobile radar hurricane intercept for Dr. Biggerstaff and Gordon Carrie.  This will be Addison’s second hurricane landfall after a very successful deployment to Hurricane Hermine earlier this year.

Contact:  Dr. Biggerstaff, drdoppler@ou.edu

You can follow the team on Twitter here: @OU_SRs

For updates on Hurricane Matthew, you can visit the National Hurricane Center’s Website at www.nhc.noaa.gov or on Twitter at @NHC_Atlantic