Earth ID: 4456

Global Hawk aircraft observes Hurricane Edouard

Visualizations by Kel Elkins Released on August 10, 2017

This animation shows how NASA scientists used an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft to study Hurricane Edouard. Dropsonde data is compared to SHIS curtain data as the aircraft flies back and forth over the storm. Relative humidity is displayed with blue representing dry air and red representing moist air. Additionally, dropsonde wind vector data is displayed using white arrows.
This video is also available on our YouTube channel.

NASA's Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3, 2012-2014) investigation was a mission that brought together several NASA centers with federal and university partners to investigate the processes that underlie hurricane formation and intensity change in the Atlantic Ocean basin. The aircraft was equipped with the Advanced Vertical Atmospheric Profiling System (AVAPS) dropsonde system that releases small instrumented packages from the aircraft that fall to the surface while measuring profiles of temperature, humidity, and winds; the Scanning High-resolution Interferometer Sounder (S-HIS) that measures profiles of temperature and humidity; and the Cloud Physics Lidar (CPL) that measures cloud and aerosol total backscattered energy.

NASA's HS3 mission pilots operated the Global Hawk aircraft on four consecutive 24-hour flights on Sept. 11-12, 14-15, 16-17, 18-19 into Hurricane Edouard and scored a bullseye by gathering information in the eye of the strengthening storm. During the Sept. 14-15 flight, the data from the Global Hawk revealed a storm that was quickly intensifying from a Category-1 to a Category-2 intensity storm.

For more information about NASA's HS3 mission, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/hs3

This animation shows how NASA scientists used an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft to study Hurricane Edouard. Dropsonde data is compared to SHIS curtain data as the aircraft flies back and forth over the storm. Relative humidity is displayed with blue representing dry air and red representing moist air. Additionally, dropsonde wind vector data is displayed using white arrows. This alternative version ends with a top-down view of the center of the storm.
This video is also available on our YouTube channel.

No legend - This animation shows how NASA scientists used an unmanned Global Hawk aircraft to study Hurricane Edouard. Dropsonde data is compared to SHIS curtain data as the aircraft flies back and forth over the storm. Relative humidity is displayed with blue representing dry air and red representing moist air. Additionally, dropsonde wind vector data is displayed using white arrows.