NASA Technology Captures Massive Hurricane Waves

nasa.gov, Oct 04, 2006

A hurricane's fury can be relentless, from frightening winds, to torrential rains and flooding. These storms also create enormous ocean waves that are hazardous to ships. And through storm surges of up to 30 feet the storms can demolish shoreline structures, erode beaches and wash out coastal roads.

As part of its activities to better understand Earth’s dynamic climate, NASA research is helping to increase knowledge about the behavior of hurricane waves. The NASA Scanning Radar Altimeter (SRA), designed to take measurements of the changing wave height and structure in and around hurricanes, flew through many storms on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) WP-3D aircraft from 1998-2005. It captured unprecedented details on wave behavior that are helping improve sea height forecasts. Strong storms like Hurricane Bonnie in August 1998 - the first to be monitored by SRA - were found to produce severe ocean waves and dramatic changes in wave height and complexity over small distances.

The SRA measures waves by sweeping a radar beam across the ocean and measuring the distance to the sea at many points. Those distances are then subtracted from the aircraft altitude to produce a sea-surface elevation map that is displayed on a monitor in the aircraft. Read more at nasa.gov