OU weather researchers may have returned from studying Hurricane Ida with best data yet
OU parked two of its mobile weather radars a few miles off Louisiana's coast.
OU parked two of its mobile weather radars a few miles off Louisiana's coast.
OU parked two of its mobile weather radars a few miles off Louisiana's coast.
University of Oklahoma weather researchers are back in Norman after riding out Hurricane Ida's landfall in Louisiana, and they're back with what may be their best set of data yet.
"Everybody was coordinating in the right spot. Everyone was communicating. And we've been striving to do that for a number of years," said Michael Biggerstaff, a professor at the OU School of Meteorology. "But I think this was the best example of it ever happening."
Hurricane Ida is a tragedy for the people who lived through it and are still living in its devastating wake. Biggerstaff said, from a scientific standpoint, it may also be one of the best-observed hurricanes ever.
"One of the best-integrated data sets that has ever been collected, I think," he said.
OU parked two of its mobile weather radars a few miles off Louisiana's coast. The researchers also relied on others, including weather balloons from the federal government and instruments from Texas Tech University that measure wind speeds on the ground.
Biggerstaff told KOCO 5 that the goal is to be able to improve the way we build and prepare for future hurricanes.
"As the climate changes, we'll probably get more and stronger hurricanes in the future as the ocean temperatures heat up. That's the fuel for hurricanes," he said. "So, as a society, we need to be better prepared for how we handle these extreme events."
Biggerstaff said in some ways, Louisiana was lucky because, right as Ida made landfall, an extra ring of storms formed around the eye of the storm, using some of the eye wall's energy. He said had that not happened, wind speeds would have been even worse.