The Governing Dynamics and Predictability of Recurving Eastern North Pacific Tropical Cyclones

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When hurricanes, more broadly known as tropical cyclones, move northward from the tropics into the middle latitudes, they encounter colder environments and cooler ocean waters, sometimes transitioning into extra-tropical cyclones. These extra-tropical cyclones, and the remnants of tropical cyclones that do not transition, can produce significant societal impacts through heavy rainfall, temperature extremes, and wildfires (fueled by lightning strikes), which have limited forecast certainty. Although studied extensively in the Atlantic and western North Pacific oceans, scientific understanding of the atmospheric processes important for these events is limited over the eastern Pacific Ocean. The investigators and graduate students will investigate why a relatively small number of hurricanes in the eastern Pacific transition into extra-tropical cyclones by examining how the evolution of these storms are impacted by conditions upstream over the western and central Pacific Ocean basins, and what atmospheric flow patterns foster infrequent, but significant, impacts from these storms over Mexico and the western United States. These tasks will be accomplished by means of climatological, composite, and case study analyses using datasets from global weather forecasting models.In addition to a better understanding of the atmospheric processes that cause eastern North Pacific hurricanes to become extra-tropical cyclones and produce major impacts in the western United States, the investigators will contribute to the training and advanced education of graduate students, share findings with the scientific research community, and incorporate our findings into the classroom and outreach events. The investigators and graduate students will work with forecasters in the San Diego office of the National Weather Service to both help transition our research findings into operations and to better inform of hazards associated with tropical cyclones. Research findings will also be discussed and expanded upon with the international and national atmospheric community through conferences, workshops, and using the University at Albany Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences Map listserv. Finally, the investigators intend to increase the representation of underrepresented minorities for graduate students studying atmospheric sciences through the American Geophysical Union Bridge Program.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.