Norman, Okla.—The OU Shared Mobile Atmospheric and Teaching radar team, led by Michael Biggerstaff, OU School of Meteorology, will depart Norman for Corpus Christi, Texas, this afternoon with the mobile C-band dual-polarimetric radar to study the landfall of what will become major Hurricane Harvey. The team will focus on tornadic circulations in the outer rain bands as part of the on-going VORTEX-SE research program objectives, as well as examine the inner core and eyewall circulations that produce inland flooding as part of the NASA Fellowship project.

OU is part of the Digital Hurricane Consortium, which is a group of university and federal government researchers who deploy sensors in advance of landfalling hurricanes. The DHC is part of the federal Disaster Impacts Assessment Plan, which is part of the COASTAL Act that is aimed at better understanding the roles of storm surge and extreme winds on the loss of houses and other buildings in the path of landfalling hurricanes.

The radar truck will be equipped with cameras provided as a result of a recent collaboration between OU, AT&T and The Weather Channel. OU SMART radar team members include Biggerstaff; Addison Alford, OU doctoral student; and Gordon Carrie, OU research associate. The team will be operational by Friday and will provide updates when possible. For more information, please contact Biggerstaff at 405.623.1769 or drdoppler@ou.edu.