GEOG 417 Research Paper

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GEOG 417: Satellite Climatology

Using Satellite Data to Analyze Tropical Cyclones Over the Gulf of Mexico

Tracey Dorian

May 1, 2012



Abstract:

Little was known about hurricanes and tropical cyclones before the invention of satellites in the 1960s. Today, satellites provide surface information over a wide area based onemission or backscattered radiation in different wavelengths from surface targets. Tropicalcyclone formation requires warm sea-surface temperatures; in fact some studies have

suggested that 26°C through a considerable depth is a sufficient temperature for cyclogenesis.For this research I used eastern Gulf of Mexico sea-surface temperature data from the AdvancedVery High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) onboard a NOAA satellite available from the USGSMMS USF website. I also used hurricane archive data that dates back to 1851 from WeatherUnderground to try to uncover any relationships between sea-surface temperatures and tropicalcyclone formation and intensity. Moreover, I used TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission)satellite data to evaluate rainfall anomalies in particular months most likely due to tropicalcyclones. Lastly, I focus on a couple of extreme tropical cyclone events and use TRMM to assessprecipitation rates and 3-D views of the storms.

The main conclusions of my research were that most tropical cyclones forming over theGulf of Mexico from 1955 to 2005 have formed in the months of August and September. I alsolearned that of the tropical cyclones that formed over the Gulf, most did not reach hurricanestatus and those that did didn’t surpass Category-1 status. Results like this can be very useful

in helping forecasters predict time of development and potential maximum strength of tropicalcyclones in the Gulf of Mexico based on what is commonly seen in climatology. I found manyother climatological information regarding tropical cyclones in the Gulf of Mexico (includingENSO dependencies), but this information is best reserved for another essay. Meteorologistsput much emphasis on the climatology of a region because often what has happened in aregions’ past is similar to what that region can expect in the future. In fact, long-termnumerical models routinely “trend” towards climatology because of the chaos theory, alsoknown as the butterfly effect, starts to manifest as forecasts become more long-term. Anotherimportant final result I found was that between 1996 and 2005 tropical systems seemed toform over the Gulf of Mexico when water temperatures were at least 29°C. This findinggenerally supports the previous studies of a 26°C requirement for cyclone development. Lastly,I used TRMM data to find more information on tropical cyclones such as rainfall anomalies,cloud coverage, vertical cloud distribution, precipitation rates, reflectivities, and cloud-top

temperatures among other things.

Introduction:

It has been known by atmospheric scientists that warm waters in the ocean help to fuel

hurricane development. A pre-existing disturbance is characterized as a tropical depression

when there is an organization of thunderstorms surrounding an area of low pressure and when

winds are less than 39 mph. Once the system becomes more organized and winds exceed 39

mph, this tropical depression becomes a tropical storm and is usually then given a name by

meteorologists. Finally, when the winds surpass 74mph, the system can be defined as a

hurricane. Hurricane intensity is then divided into 5 scales as a part of the Saffir-Simpson



Scale, which defines a Category-1 hurricane as a storm with sustained winds of 74-95 mph, a

Category-2 hurricane with winds 96-110 mph, a Category-3 hurricane with winds 111-130 mph,

a Category-4 hurricane with winds 131-155 mph, and a Category-5 hurricane with winds in

excess of 155 mph. A storm with a Category-3 status or higher is considered to be a major

hurricane and is a huge incentive for evacuation if this hurricane makes landfall. Not all

hurricanes make landfall, but those that do can cause fatalities (mostly due to flooding) and

millions of dollars of damage.

Once a hurricane forms over the ocean, different factors help to maintain, weaken, or

strengthen the storm. Such factors that have been known to help strengthen a hurricane

include, but are not limited to, marginal vertical wind-shear, warm waters, a moist atmosphere,

and considerable distance from land. Studies have found that water temperatures through a

substantial depth greater than about 26°C (79°F) are ideal for hurricane development. This is

why hurricanes often develop in the tropical oceans where the waters are warmer. On the

contrary, hurricanes often weaken when they move over cooler waters, when they approach

land (system no longer has an energy source), and when there is substantial vertical wind shear

that can disorganize the system and disrupt the core. Hurricanes also do not tend to form

within about 300 miles of the equator because a hurricane needs the Coriolis force caused by

the rotation of the Earth to help provide the counter-clockwise (Northern Hemisphere) or

counter-clockwise (Southern Hemisphere) rotation (How Hurricanes Form 2011).

Before satellite imagery was introduced for meteorological purposes in the 1960s, there

was virtually no way that humans could get sufficient information about hurricane

development and tracks to confidently forecast the evolution of storms. Humans were required

to make observations from ships or aircraft in the vicinity of hurricanes to gather information

such as barometric pressure, wind speeds, position, and sea-surface temperatures. Not only

were these methods dangerous, but the information gathered could not be continuous and so

the meteorological information gathered would not be enough to confidently predict the

trajectory of the hurricane. Although there are still some limitations with using satellite



imagery, such as the need to validate the information with surface observations, the creation of

satellites was a huge breakthrough for atmospheric scientists wanting to study hurricanes and

predict changing intensity and path probabilities. For example, the eye of the hurricane was

previously difficult for scientists to study, let alone see, without satellite imagery. However

with satellite imagery, humans could now get a view of the eye of the hurricane from above,

and could then discern the strength of the hurricane as a more symmetric, well-defined eye

often indicates stronger storm. A hurricane’s precipitation bands can also be viewed by

ground-based radar (if the precipitation is not too far out in the ocean) or by a satellite radar.

Satellite data are often used as the initial conditions to put into numerical models to help

predict evolution of both extra-tropical and tropical systems. In summary, humans have

figured out ways to more accurately study tropical systems from satellites and thus from

distances without risk to human life.

Previous studies have been done on tropical cyclone climatology and the importance of

sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) in tropical cyclogenesis. In Lloyd J. Shapiro and Stanley B.

Goldenberg’s 1997 paper entitled Atlantic Sea-Surface Temperatures and Tropical Cyclone

Formation, they state that hurricanes “rarely form when underlying SST is below a threshold

value of about 26.5°C” which has been shown in Palmén (1948) and Gray’s (1968) research as

well (Shapiro 1997). Palmén found that a disturbance may develop when the sea-surface

temperatures are higher than the 26°C to 27°C range over a large area (Kurihara 1981).

My hypotheses for this research project that I formulated include that 26°C is generally

a sea-surface temperature that is needed for tropical cyclone development and that warmer

waters help to strengthen tropical storms. I also expect to see that most of the tropical

cyclones that form over the Gulf would not reach hurricane status simply because of the lack of

distance, and thus time, to strengthen before making landfall. I also overlaid tropical cyclone

tracks over the sea-surface temperature maps to decipher approximately the temperatures

before formation and before intensification. I then look at specific tropical cyclone cases to

view the precipitation rates through a vertical profile available from the TRMM website



provided by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Also from this website are monthly

precipitation anomalies which I also attempted to correlate with tropical cyclone occurrences.

Data and Methods of Analysis:

For the experiment, I observed sea-surface temperature data only available between

1996 and 2005 from the USGS MMS USF website. The USGS Coastal and Marine Geology

Program provides Gulf of Mexico (Figure 1) satellite imagery on its website. The satellite

imagery was processed by the USGS using data that were originally collected at the USF-FMRI

Joint Use Facility. The data was measured from the Advanced Very High Resolution

Radiometer (AVHRR) on-board a NOAA polar orbiting satellite and includes sea-surface

temperature, reflectance, and altimetry. The AVHRR sensor measures 5 spectral bands of

reflectance from the earth’s surface and can provide images with pixel resolution of about 1.1

km along the central latitude. The sensor detects the emission of infrared radiation between

11.5 and 12.5 µm in order to gather information about the sea-surface temperatures (Barnes).

All images on the website are in Mercator projection and cover an area from 22°N to 31.61°N

and from 79°W to 92.658°W (Wertz). The sea-surface temperature plots include both land mask

(brown) and cloud masks (gray) and the temperature resolution is 1/6°C (Wertz).



Figure 1: Map of the Gulf of Mexico. I investigated tropical cyclone climatology and also SST

data over this region.

Other websites that I used for this research project include Weather Underground

(http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/hurrarchive.asp) to view hurricane archives, and the

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center website to view TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission)

satellite images. The hurricane archive from Weather Underground includes tropical storms

and hurricanes that formed in the North Atlantic, East Pacific, Western Pacific, and Indian

Ocean from 1851 to 2011. Each year has information on the tropical cyclone such as the time

period between formation and dissipation, the maximum winds, the number of fatalities, the

dollars in damage, and the U.S. landfall category. Each individual storm has more information

on the status, winds, pressure, and position at different times of the storms development and

eventual dissipation. Also, the website includes maps with plotted trajectories of the cyclones.

I use these maps to compare to the sea-surface temperatures plots in order to estimate sea-

surface temperatures during formation, strengthening, or weakening. The NASA Goddard Space

Flight Center website has TRMM based climatology, rain averages and anomalies, and data on

hurricanes including precipitation rates, cloud top temperatures, cloud types, and water vapor

content.

There are many data limitations and limitations of techniques to be addressed before

proceeding with the results. Some of those limitations include the fact that the SST charts only

show the eastern portion of the Gulf of Mexico. For this reason, I was not able to find SST data

for tropical cyclones that formed or moved over the western part of the Gulf of Mexico.

Furthermore, there are data voids in the SST charts as a result of clouds. In other words, sea-

surface temperature data are missing from days where the satellite could not read infrared

emission from the sea surface because the satellite was instead picking up emission from

clouds. This made it challenging to estimate the sea-surface temperatures for some tropical

storms. It was also difficult to perfectly match where the tropical cyclone formed or moved on

http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/hurrarchive.asp






the sea-surface temperature charts. At times the sea-surface temperatures were also difficult to

define based on the color scale provided. I also looked at sea-surface temperatures anywhere

from days to weeks before the storm actually formed or intensified because I intended to find a

map with a minimum amount of cloud masks. However, this should not have been a huge

problem simply because sea-surface temperatures should not vary much from day to day since

the heat capacity of the ocean is very large. Last but not least, all of this research based on the

relationships between sea-surface temperatures and tropical cyclone formation and

strengthening does not take into account other factors that could help to strengthen or weaken

the cyclone. Such factors that that can help a tropical cyclone mature include a pre-existing

disturbance, upper-level divergence, and a moist and unstable atmosphere. Factors that can

weaken a storm include vertical wind shear, friction from land surfaces, dry air advection, or

simply changes in storm track due to upper-level flow.

Results:

There were 23 total tropical cyclones that formed over the Gulf of Mexico between 1996

and 2005. Out of those 23 tropical cyclones that formed over the Gulf, only 5 of them reached

hurricane status. Of those 5 hurricanes, 4 were Category-1 hurricanes and 1 was a Category-3

hurricane. It is important to note that I counted a tropical cyclone as reaching hurricane status

if it reached hurricane status while still moving over the Gulf of Mexico waters because I am

focusing on the Gulf of Mexico.

Of the tropical storms that formed in the Gulf of Mexico between 1996 and 2005, I

overlaid the storm tracks over the SST charts in order to estimate the temperature of the water

before the cyclone formed. Overall, I found that the temperature averaged 29.6°C for

cyclogenesis. The temperatures when the tropical cyclones formed were mostly between 25°C



and 35°C. Thirteen out of the fourteen tropical cyclones, or about 93% of the tropical cyclones,

all formed in sea-surface temperatures that were generally over 26°C (Figure 2).

Figure 2: This figure shows the 14 different tropical cyclones that formed over the Gulf of

Mexico between 1996 and 2005 and the sea-surface temperatures (in °C) of the waters prior to

their formation.

I next focused on tropical cyclones that strengthened over the Gulf of Mexico, including

both those that formed over the Gulf of Mexico and those that did not form over the Gulf of

Mexico. I found that the sea-surface temperature right around the spot where the systems

strengthened averaged 29°C for 17 different cyclones that strengthened over the Gulf. The sea-

surface temperatures generally ranged between 25°C and 34°C, and about 16/17 (or about 94%)

of the tropical cyclones strengthened over waters above 26°C (Figure 3).

20

25

30

35

40

S e a - S u r f a c e T e m p e r a t u r e ( ° C )

Tropical Cyclone

Tropical Cyclone Formation SSTs1996-2005



Figure 3: This figure shows the 17 tropical cyclones that strengthened over the Gulf of Mexico

between 1996 and 2005. This graph includes tropical cyclones that originated in the Gulf of

Mexico and tropical cyclones that did not originate over the Gulf of Mexico but eventually

moved over the Gulf and strengthened.

Other information that I gathered about tropical cyclones from using satellite data is the

monthly rainfall anomalies and vertical distribution of precipitation rates from TRMM satellite

data. The TRMM satellite was launched in 1997 by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration

Agency designed to monitor and study rainfall rates in the tropics between 35°S and 35°N. The

satellite flies about 403 kilometers above the surface 16 times per day every 92.5 minutes

(Pierce 2012). The TRMM satellite has five different instruments onboard, including the

precipitation radar (PR), the TRMM Microwave Imager (TMI), the Visible and Infrared Scanner

(VIRS), the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS), and the Cloud and Earth Radiant Energy Sensor

(CERES). The PR operates at 13.8 GHz and measures the 3-D rainfall distribution over both land

and ocean. The TMI is a passive microwave radiometer operating at five frequencies: 10.65,

19.35, 37.0, and 85.5 GHz at dual polarization and 22.235 GHz at single polarization (Kempler

2009). The TMI radiometer provides information on the integrated column precipitation

0

5

10

15

20

25

3035

40

S e a - S u r f a c e T e m p e r

a t u r e ( ° C )

Tropical Cyclone

SSTs for Tropical Cyclones that Strengthened

Over the Gulf of Mexico 1996-2005(includes those that formed over Gulf and those that didn't)



content, cloud liquid water, cloud ice, rain intensity, and rainfall types (e.g., stratiform vs.

convective) (Kempler 2009). The VIRS senses radiation coming from the earth in 5 different

wavelengths: 0.63, 1.6, 3.75, 10.8, and 12 um, and provides high resolution observations on

cloud coverage, cloud type, and cloud top temperatures.

According to the TRMM data, the rainfall anomalies were quite high over the Gulf of

Mexico in September 1998. As one can see in Figure 4, rainfall anomalies ranged from 5

mm/day to as high as 15 mm/day in the Gulf of Mexico. The high rainfall anomalies likely

corresponded to the four different tropical cyclones that all formed in the Gulf of Mexico in

mid to late August and September in the 1998 hurricane season. Those tropical storms in

chronological order include Tropical Storm Charley, Hurricane Earl, Tropical Storm Frances, and

Tropical Storm Hermine. Surface observations help to validate the rainfall anomalies from the

satellite data. Hurricane Earl produced a tremendous amount of rainfall while moving over

Florida, with 16.36 inches (415 mm) falling 5 miles northeast of Panama City, Florida (Hurricane

Earl 2011). Tropical Storm Charley also produced extreme rainfall amounts, with Del Rio, Texas

recording 17 inches (430 mm) of rain in 24 hours from the storm, a new record for the city and

the most rainfall from a tropical cyclone in Texas since Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979

(Tropical Storm Charley 2011). Tropical Storm Frances produced rainfall totals for many areas

exceeding 10 inches (254 mm) (Tropical Storm Frances 2012 ). As one can see in Figure 5, the

four storms that formed over the Gulf of Mexico all moved over the same general location that

matches where the highest precipitation anomalies were in the TRMM rainfall anomalies image

in Figure 4.



Figure 4: This figure shows the TRMM Merged Rainfall Anomalies for September 1998 in

mm/day.

Figure 5: The tracks of the four tropical cyclones that formed over the Gulf of Mexico in mid to

late August and September in the 1998 hurricane season.

TRMM data also can give a 3-D interpretation of tropical cyclone structure. For

example, on September 21, 2002 Major Hurricane Isidore strengthened over the southernmost

portion of the Gulf of Mexico. Figure 6 shows the “vertical structure of precipitation embedded

in Isidore's clouds, taken through the center of the storm at 7 AM on September 21, 2002”

(Pierce 2012). At the time of the image, surface observations were winds sustained at 85 knots

and the central pressure was 969 mb. TRMM essentially captured the moment when the eye

was just beginning to form in Hurricane Isidore. The highest cloud tops are found next to the



eye of the cyclone, where we can see 10 km cloud tops labeled. Information on cloud-top

temperatures can help meteorologists determine how unstable the layer is and the probability

of precipitation. In fact, the GOES Precipitation Index does just that; it is an algorithm that uses

cloud top temperatures to estimate the probability of tropical rainfall. In general, the higher

the cloud tops, the more unstable the layer is and the increased likelihood that there will be

substantial precipitation and severe weather. Information on cloud structure is also very

useful because we can see the extent of cloud-cover and if the cloud-cover has a stratiform or

cumuliform appearance. Interestingly, there have been studies by NASA scientists showing that

information about cloud tops can help to give clues of the behavior of winds below the

hurricane on the Earth's surface (Gutro 2006). The cloud-top heights can be used in numerical

weather models to help predict hurricane winds. These studies appeared in an issue of

Geophysical Research Letters in 2005.

https://reader009.{domain}/reader009/html5/0502/5ae91a24d2a0a/5ae

Figure 6: (Left) Cross-section (“AB”) view of vertical structure of clouds and precipitation of

Hurricane Isidore as it strengthened in the Yucatan Peninsula. Blues represent less precipitation

and reds represent more precipitation. (Right) An infrared satellite image showing the cloud top

temperatures both in degrees Celsius and degrees Fahrenheit at around the same time as the

image on the left.



The first hurricane to form in the Gulf of Mexico in the 2003 hurricane season was

Hurricane Erika. Hurricane Erika developed west of Florida and then moved westward over the

Gulf of Mexico until strengthening into a Category 1 hurricane on August 16th right before it

made landfall in Mexico. Figure 7 shows a vertical slice taken by the precipitation radar

onboard the TRMM satellite through the northeast side of the storm indicating areas of heavy

(darker reds) and light rain (blue and green areas). At the time of the measurements, the storm

was moving at 21 mph to the west under the influence of high pressure to the north (Pierce

2012). TRMM radar images can be compared to ground-based radar images to get a more

complete picture of rainfall rates within a tropical storm. Ground radar provides very up-to-

date continuous information on precipitation rates, whereas the TRMM satellite gives a

snapshot of precipitation rates to be studied afterwards. Information on the where the heaviest

precipitation will occur is crucial in forecasting flash floods, storm surge, and other associated

severe weather.



Figure 7: This figure shows a top view of Tropical Storm Erika (left) and a vertical slice taken by

the precipitation radar onboard the TRMM satellite through the northeast side of the storm

(right). The red colors signify heavy precipitation and the blue and green colors signify lighter

precipitation. The bottom image shows a ground radar image taken from NEXRAD radar at

Brownsville, Texas on August 16, 2003 as the system made landfall over Mexico.

Summary and Conclusions:

My research on tropical cyclones, that would not have been available without the use of

satellite data, suggests that we can expect that most of the tropical cyclones forming in the Gulf

of Mexico will not reach hurricane status because I found that only about 26/87, or about 30%,

of the total tropical cyclones that formed in the Gulf in a 51-year period reached hurricane

status. I have also confirmed using AVHRR satellite data that 26°C is likely a sufficient sea-

surface temperature threshold for tropical cyclogenesis. However, I did find that slightly higher

sea-surface temperatures around 29.6°C in the Gulf of Mexico caused cyclogenesis, and sea-

surface temperatures around 29°C caused the strengthening of the tropical cyclones between

1996 and 2005. In other words, I have found in my research that warmer waters than what

was originally hypothesized based on previous research seemed necessary for tropical cyclone

development. Of course, it was difficult to pinpoint the specific temperatures from the sea-

surface charts, and so there are uncertainties in this finding, but it is interesting nonetheless.



I have also learned of the importance of TRMM satellite data in gathering information

about tropical cyclones. Not only can TRMM data provide rainfall climatologies and thus

rainfall anomalies, but it can also provide observations of tropical storms while they are still in

progress. The TRMM satellite can see a tropical cyclone’s rainfall rates at one particular

moment in time so that meteorologists can study precipitation distributions and reflectivity

values in the tropical system. Not only can this help atmospheric scientists understand the

structure of a tropical storm, but it can also perhaps help to understand the evolution,

formation, and eventual dissipation of the storm. The TRMM satellite can also provide vertical

distributions of rainfall. This is very important because then scientists can have a way to look

inside the storm instead of just seeing surface observations. Instruments on TRMM can also

see cloud structure, cloud thickness, cloud liquid water and ice content, cloud coverage, and

cloud-top temperatures. All of this information can help provide scientists with a way to

forecast whether or not the storm will intensify or dissipate. In fact, past studies have proposed

that cloud-top temperatures can give indications as to what the future surface winds of the

storm will be. If scientists are able to predict intensification, then they can also better forecast

flooding and other severe weather associated with heavy rainfall rates.

These studies of tropical cyclone climatology and precipitation rates could not have

been possible without satellites. Satellites helped to provide the weather information about the

tropical cyclones and also sea-surface temperature information that I used to compare to each

other to find relationships. The AVHRR and TRMM are only two sensors of hundreds that can

provide information on any meteorological variable. This just helps to underline the

importance of satellite information and the importance of it being analyzed and made available

to the public so that different research projects could be done by regular civilians to help in the

advancement of science. Although there are still some disadvantages with using satellite data,

including poor resolution, data voids, and the need to compare satellite data with surface data,

scientific knowledge of tropical cyclones has improved immensely as a result of satellite

imagery in the past 50 years. There are still many aspects that we do not understand about



tropical cyclone evolution and thus there is still plenty of room for future advancement with

the use of satellite data.

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