We are currently supported by the National Science Foundation to investigate the effects of land and the urban environment on the hurricane wind field during landfalls. We are using both in-situ measurements of hurricane winds, large-eddy simulations, and even wind tunnel experiments to better understand how the hurricane wind fields changes as it moves onto land and into suburban and urban areas. We hope to use these results to improve the near-surface wind field predictions in both research and forecasting models.

Some recent publications:

Hlywiak, J., and D. S. Nolan, 2022: Targeted artificial ocean cooling to weaken tropical cyclones would be futile. Communications Earth & Environment, 3, Art. 195., https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00519-1.

Hlywiak, J., and D. S. Nolan, 2022: The evolution of asymmetries in the tropical cyclone boundary layer wind field during landfall. Mon. Wea. Rev., 150, 529-549. https://doi.org/10.1175/MWR-D-21-0191.1.

Hendricks. E. A., J. C. Knievel, and D. S. Nolan, 2021: Evaluation of boundary layer and urban-canopy parameterizations for simulating wind in Miami during Hurricane Irma (2017). Mon. Wea. Rev., 149, 2321-2329.

Hlywiak, J., and D. S. Nolan, 2021: The response of the near-surface tropical cyclone wind field to inland surface roughness length and soil moisture content during and after landfall. J. Atmos. Sci., 78, 983-1000.

Nolan, D. S., B. D. McNoldy, and J. Yunge, F. J. Masters, and I. M. Giammanco, 2021: Evaluation of the surface wind field over land in WRF simulations of Hurricane Wilma (2005). Part II: Surface winds, inflow angles, and boundary layer profiles. Mon. Wea. Rev., 149, 697-713.

Nolan, D. S., B. D. McNoldy, and J. Yunge, 2021: Evaluation of the surface wind field over land in WRF simulations of Hurricane Wilma (2005). Part I: Model initialization and simulation validation. Mon. Wea. Rev., 149, 679-695.

Shi, L., M. Olabarrieta, D. S. Nolan, and J. C. Warner, 2020: Tropical cyclones rainbands can trigger meteotsunamis. Nature Comm., 11, 678.

Hlywiak, J., and D. S. Nolan, 2019: The influence of oceanic barrier layers on tropical cyclone intensity as determined through idealized, coupled numerical simulations. J. Phys. Ocean.,49, 1723-1745.

Klotz, B. W., and D. S. Nolan, 2019: SFMR surface wind undersampling over the tropical cyclone lifecycle. Mon. Wea. Rev., 147, 247-268.

Nolan, David S., Jun A. Zhang, and Eric. W. Uhlhorn, 2014: On the limits of estimating the maximum wind speeds in hurricanes. Mon. Wea. Rev., 142, 2814-2837.