Contact:  Dane Konop                           FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
          (301) 713-2483                       11/30/95

          DKONOP@RDC.NOAA.GOV

SCIENTISTS TO FLY INTO COASTAL STORMS TO IMPROVE FORECASTS

Over the next three weeks, any forecast of a coastal storm about to make landfall in the Pacific Northwest could send residents scurrying to prepare for strong winds, heavy rain and coastal flooding -- and the possible disruption of air flights out of the region. However, for scientists from the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Washington, the same NOAA forecast will send them scrambling to catch their flight into the storm.

That's because beginning this week and continuing through Dec. 19, teams of scientists from NOAA and the University of Washington will fly the NOAA WP-3D research aircraft into the path of coastal storms to study how these weather systems are affected by the mountain ranges that border the coastal Northwest.

Seven 9-hour flights are planned from Boeing Field in Seattle just before and during storm landfall.

During the experiment, called COAST for Coastal Observations And Simulation with Topography, scientists aboard the NOAA research aircraft will use sophisticated meteorological instruments that include dropwindsondes (instrument packages that are dropped from the aircraft) and Doppler radar to "look into" a storm to measure temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure and wind speed from the sea surface to about 20,000 feet.

"We have a fairly good theoretical understanding of how terrain such as the Olympic Mountains affects atmospheric air pressure and wind fields," said principal investigator Nick Bond of the NOAA- sponsored Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Oceans at the University of Washington.

"But we lack sufficient observational data on the actual effects of mountains and coastal terrain on winter storms to model them adequately. And without detailed observational data to feed the models -- measurements made inside a storm as it approaches then makes landfall -- we cannot improve forecasts of these storms. This is the situation we aim to rectify in the COAST experiment -- with the ultimate goal of improving coastal storm forecasts," Bond said.

Specifically, the researchers will study how coastal terrain affects the dynamics of storm fronts, document how mountains modify clouds and precipitation, and measure storm turbulence adjacent to mountains -- coastal weather features not now well observed or modeled.

Data from the COAST experiment will be analyzed and archived in Seattle by NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and the University of Washington.

In addition to Bond, principal investigators for COAST include Brad Colman from NOAA's Weather Service Forecast Office in Seattle, James Doyle from the Naval Research Laboratory in Monterey, Calif., Robert Houze and Clifford Mass from the University of Washington, William Neff and Melvyn Shapiro from NOAA's Environmental Technology Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., and Bradley Smull from the University of Washington.

The research is funded jointly by NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program and the Office of Naval Research. The Naval Research Laboratory will use COAST data to validate its new high-resolution model coastal forecast model. The National Science Foundation is providing computer modeling support.

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