PREDICT CIMSS Activities
September 1, 2010
by: Sarah Monette
Field experiments definitely don’t care about your original sleep schedule. Instead of getting up at 8 am, I report to the operation (op) center for a 6 am research mission. I have to admit, walking in the dimly lit darkness is kind of refreshing, the Atlantic Ocean can be heard (and seen) in the distance and everything is peaceful. Not that the op center isn’t peaceful, but the typing (which I’m currently adding to) doesn’t quite compare to the sound of crashing waves. Especially with Hurricane Earl still causing some nice swells.
My main job on flight days is to provide nowcasting for the research missions, which today flew a G5 into Tropical Storm Fiona. The flight started out just fine, until the scientists started to deviate from their original flight plan. This was fine; the entire flight just got moved to the west to account for the additional westward propagation of Fiona. However, the flight decided to cut off entire leg of the flight plan. So, the original flight plan was removed from the map, and I just paid attention to what was directly in front of the plane’s nose. Some lightning and turbulence had to be avoided, and then the plane started turning around in the middle of the flight to head back to Barbados. No more dropsondes and too much convection. Guess its an early day.