Tropical cyclones are one of the most costliest and deadliest natural hazards affecting the U.S. While NOAA has significantly improved hurricane track forecasts over the last few decades, intensity forecast improvements have lagged in comparison. Warm ocean waters provide the fuel for tropical cyclones and can have a major impact on their intensity. Unexpected rapid intensification of tropical cyclones in the hours before landfall can catch coastal communities off guard with deadly consequences, while unexpected rapid weakening can erode public trust in forecasts and evacuation guidance, and can lead to costly and unnecessary evacuations. Local governments and decision-makers need accurate hurricane forecasts to make cost-effective preparation and evacuation decisions that impact human life and property.
Accurate representation of the upper ocean in models is critical when forecasting hurricane intensity; however, there is a major shortage of subsurface ocean observations available to the models that are used for intensity forecasts. Underwater gliders are uniquely suited to fill this observing gap.
Gliders are one component of a suite of complementary observing platforms gathering critical data that help scientists understand and predict hurricanes. Collectively, these systems capture subsurface, air-sea interface, and atmospheric information to gain a full understanding and picture of the dynamics and processes affecting hurricane intensity and movement. These platforms include Argo floats, eXpendable BathyThermographs (XBTs), moored buoys, surface drifters, satellites, and high frequency radars.
![](https://cdn.ioos.noaa.gov/media/2024/03/observations.jpg)
Credit: NOAA/PMEL.
- Loop Current
- Gulf Stream
- Mid-Atlantic Cold Pool
- Freshwater Barrier Layers
- Atlantic Warm Pool
- Eddies and Rings
Hurricane Katrina crossed over an area of high Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential, where a Loop Current Eddy contributed to rapid intensification just prior to landfall. Credit: NOAA/AOML.
By the Numbers
These metrics represent 5 Atlantic hurricane seasons (2018 - 2022), during hurricane season months June through November.- Emanuel, K. Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436, 686–688 (2005).
- NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2023). https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/billions/, DOI: 10.25921/stkw-7w73
Since 2018, the U.S. Navy Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command (CNMOC), and its operational command, the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO), has contributed Navy Littoral Battlespace Sensing gliders (LBS-G) to NOAA for ocean heat content missions. These Navy gliders have helped fill important upper ocean observing gaps in the NOAA ocean model that feeds the hurricane intensity forecasts. In fact, the Navy glider observations comprise 25% of all the cumulative Atlantic glider observations delivered to NOAA over the 2018 to 2022 Atlantic hurricane seasons.
This partnership has involved over a dozen institutions and NOAA programs, working together on glider operations and data delivery.
Since 2021, support for the glider operations has been made possible by the NOAA OMAO Uncrewed Systems Operations Center.
Navy gliders ready for deployment. Credit: USF.
NOAA IOOS: Glider Data Assembly Center
NOAA NHC: Official Forecasts
NOAA AOML: Glider Research | Map
CARICOOS: Hurricane Info
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GCOOS: Hurricane info | Map
MARACOOS: Hurricane Info | Map
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