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Hurricane Rita

TEXAS TECH HURRICANE RESEARCH TEAM

 

Preliminary TTU Rita Data and Discussion

The following file contain preliminary plots from data collected by the TTU mobile towers in Hurricane Rita.

Wind Speed and Direction Time Series for Hurricane Rita 2005

All of the data is from 10 m AGL and was collected at airports in the specified towns. Exposure was not consistently open, even though the deployments were made at airports. No adjustment has been made to correct for exposure. The deadband for the RM Young Wind Monitor is evident in the some of the wind direction data. Consider everything preliminary; I am forwarding the data to facilitate multi-institutional damage assessment/investigation efforts and discussion. We will add the Rita data to the website in the next few days www.atmo.ttu.edu/WEMITE. If you don’t already have it, preliminary Katrina data is already there, and it carries all of the same precautions.

One of the TTU towers at the airport in Orange, Texas took debris impact from a 20’x12’ reinforced hanger (garage) door which originated about ~192 yards to the NE of the tower. I have included the time histories from the tower, but they are obviously incomplete as functionality of the non-ruggedized SBCCOM tower ceased upon impact. To be honest, I doubt a WEMITE tower would have survived the impact either. The follow file includes a few pictures of the damage.

Pictures of TTU Tower Damaged by Storm Debris

Another interesting note is the reorganization of the circulation center at landfall which seemed to position the onshore flow further east into LA. Even the Orange, TX site did not appear to take any onshore flow according to our records and the damage patterns (debris fall from NE to SW). In hindsight, we should have positioned something further east into LA, but did not.

Upon returning to collect the towers, we noted a tremendous amount of tree fall near Orange TX. About 60-70% of the houses north of Orange had at least one tree laying on the structure. I would assume the same could be said for the areas in SW LA. Further west, south of the airport in Port Arthur, we noted several homes of newer construction off of HWY 73 which were missing portions of their roofs and some gable end wall failures. This particular area is marked by fewer trees and more open exposure. We did not assess damage in any of the LA areas south of I-10.

Many thanks for Forrest Masters, Kurt Gurley, Rob Howard and Josh Wurman for coordinating in the field, and Chris Weiss for logistical and forecasting support from TTU.

 

10:00 pm CDT ------ 9-26-05 -------

Status:

--- DOWN----

Team Location:

Lubbock, TX

WEMITE 1.5: DOWN
WEMITE 2: DOWN
SBCCOM : DOWN
SBCCOM: DOWN
SBCCOM: HARD DOWN - DEBRIS IMPACT

Discussion:

The team returned to Lubbock this evening at 7:30pm. Quick summary of the deployment. WEMITE 1.5 did not function well due to a laptop internal laptop power issue, it only collected 8 hrs of data. The SBCCOM tower located at the same site suffered debris impact damage. A 22' x 12' hangar door managed to cut the the tower in half. The door landed 122' from the tower. The hangar door originated from a hangar approx. 300 yds away. The data logger enclosure survived and should be complete data until the impact occured. WEMITE 2 worked well as well as the other two SBCCOM towers. The data will be available on the Web sometime over the next two weeks.

Thanks to all team members, as well as Dave Kook and Chris Weiss on base support, everyone did an outstanding job. Rookie Mike Efferson did an excellent job on his first deployment. Thanks again for another safe and hopefully scientfically rewarding deployment!

Deployment:

 

Updates/News/Announcements:

A full system test of WEMITE 1.5 and its new laptop will take place in the next two weeks. This will be a 24hr test, with a full deployment. Those wishing to participate in future deployments should help in this test. When this will take place is still being determined. It will happen in the next two weeks.

 

9:00 pm CDT ------ 9-24-05 -------

Status:

--- RECOVERY ----

Team Location:

Baton Rouge, LA

WEMITE 1.5: DEPLOYED --- INTACT
WEMITE 2: DEPLOYED ---- INTACT
SBCCOM : DEPLOYED ----- UNKNOWN
SBCCOM: DEPLOYED ----- UNKNOWN
SBCCOM: FAILED DUE TO DEBRIS IMPACT

Discussion:

The team will depart Baton Rouge, LA tomorrow morning at 5am. The team will attempt to retrieve all towers and most likely stay in west Houston for the night. Assuming no unforseen complications, the team should return to Lubbock late Monday afternoon or evening.

Special Thanks to Dave Kook and Chris Weiss for another outstanding job with base support!

Deployment:

The track of Rita took it between the Port Arthur and Orange sites. This looks to be a sucessful deployment. Word from Forest Masters and the FCMP group who deployed near the Orange site indicated that the SBCCOM tower suffered a failure at the middle section of the tower and appeared to be from debris impact.

ALL WEMITE TOWERS ARE INTACT

 

8:00 pm CDT ------ 9-23-05 -------

Status:

--- ACTIVATED ----

Team Location:

Baton Rouge, LA

WEMITE 1.5: DEPLOYED
WEMITE 2: DEPLOYED
SBCCOM : DEPLOYED
SBCCOM: DEPLOYED
SBCCOM: DEPLOYED

Discussion:

Team is located in Baton Rouge, LA. The team has deployed all towers. Locations are listed in the deployment section. The team is staying with friends and family due to the inability to find hotel vacancies.

We hope to be able to retrieve towers on Sunday.

The remaining towers were deployed today at the Orange Co. Airport in Orange, TX

Deployment:

SBCCOM Anahuac, TX (Chambers Co. Airport ): 29' 45.994 94' 39.572
SBCCOM Winnie, TX (Winnie/Stowell Airport): 29' 48.866 94' 25.893
WEMITE 2 Port Arthur, TX (SE Texas Regional Airport): 29' 57.362 94' 00.950
WEMITE 1.5 Orange, TX (Orange, Co. Airport): 30' 4.93 93' 47.771
SBCCOM Orange, TX (Orange, Co. Airport): 30' 4.81 93' 47.832

10:00 pm CDT ------ 9-22-05 -------

Status:

--- ACTIVATED ----

Team Location:

Beaumont, TX

WEMITE 1.5: READY
WEMITE 2: DEPLOYED
SBCCOM : DEPLOYED
SBCCOM: DEPLOYED
SBCCOM: READY

Discussion:

Team is located in Beaumont, TX. The team has deployed 3 towers. Locations will be listed in the deployment section. The team will deploy the remaining two towers tomorrow, most likely in Sulfur, LA and Lake Charles, LA. Though this depends highly on track changes over the next 10 hours.

Deployment:

SBCCOM Anahuac, TX (Chambers Co. Airport ): 29' 45.994 94' 39.572
SBCCOM Winnie, TX (Winnie/Stowell Airport): 29' 48.866 94' 25.893
WEMITE 2 Port Arthur, TX (SE Texas Regional Airport): 29' 57.362 94' 00.950

11:30 am CDT ------ 9-20-05 -------

Status:

--- ACTIVATED ----

Team Location:

Lubbock, TX

WEMITE 1.5: READY
WEMITE 2: READY
SBCCOM : READY
SBCCOM: READY
SBCCOM: READY

Discussion:

Texas Tech Hurricane Research Team/WEMITE has been activated for Hurricane Rita. Rita presently is a category 1 hurricane. Central pressure has been falling over the last 36 hrs. Rita will meet deployment criteria for a potential Texas landfall. The intial target will be the central Texas coast, north of Corpus Christi. The target area will be narrowed down over the the next 24 to 48 hrs. The team will have both WEMITE towers along with all three SBCCOM 10m towers. Team will depart Lubbock Wednesday morning.

Deployment:

WEMITE will deploy. It is unsure at the moment which experimental design we will use, though it appears likely at this moment that the turbulence experiment will be used. This also depends on site surveys as well as intensity forecasts closer to landfall.

Updates/News/Announcements:

Inventory check and loading of equipment, today (after 1:30pm) Reese building 250. Final inventory check at 6pm Reese Bldg 250, with departure Wednesday morning, time TBA.

Deployment Team:

  • Dr. John Schroeder
  • Ian Giammanco
  • Brian Hirth
  • Kirsten Orwig
  • Maribel Martinez
  • Eric Thoen
  • Mike Efferson