| NSF Org: |
AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | August 23, 2024 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | August 23, 2024 |
| Award Number: | 2426296 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Nicholas Anderson
nanderso@nsf.gov (703)292-4715 AGS Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences GEO Directorate for Geosciences |
| Start Date: | September 1, 2024 |
| End Date: | August 31, 2027 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $698,967.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $698,967.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
660 PARRINGTON OVAL RM 301 NORMAN OK US 73019-3003 (405)325-4757 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
660 PARRINGTON OVAL RM 301 NORMAN OK US 73019-3003 |
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Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| NSF Program(s): |
AGS-ATM & Geospace Sciences, Physical & Dynamic Meteorology |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.050 |
ABSTRACT
Landfalling hurricanes produce multiple, concurrent hazards, including tornadoes, that can compound the impact of one another. These tornadoes in landfalling hurricanes can impact regions that infrequently experience tornadoes (i.e., Northeast U.S.), or have vulnerable infrastructure and marginalized communities with rapidly growing populations (i.e., Southeast U.S.). Nearly all those hurricanes that have produced the largest number of tornadoes in the modern historical record have transformed into high-latitude low-pressure systems either before, during, or after landfall as part of a process called extratropical transition. However, incomplete knowledge exists of how extratropical transition impacts tornadoes. Hence, this research seeks to understand how the extratropical transition of a hurricane impacts tornadoes, their associated thunderstorms, and near-thunderstorm environments. The knowledge gained from this work will serve as the foundation for improving tornado forecast skill at all lead times, which will be facilitated by the involvement of a Storm Prediction Center lead forecaster on the science team. This proposal will also train the next generation of scientists by funding the research of multiple undergraduate and graduate students.
The science team will test whether extratropical transition impacts tornadoes using a climatological observational analysis paired with a two-part modeling study. First, we will investigate how extratropical transition impacts tornadoes and their attendant supercell (i.e., strongly rotating thunderstorms) attributes using long-term tornado and radar datasets. To identify the factors responsible for these changes in tornadoes and supercells, we will examine how tornado frequency varies with hurricane and its large-scale environmental traits during extratropical transition using an ensemble of high-resolution simulations of hurricanes that do and do not undergo transition. We will then characterize how convective-scale kinematic and thermodynamic environments respond to these changes in the hurricane and its large-scale environmental factors using a large sample of radiosondes and model-derived soundings sourced near supercells. Finally, these near-supercell soundings will be used as a base state for a series of idealized model experiments to assess key small-scale environmental traits that impact supercell characteristics associated with transition.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
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