Impact of high resolution water vapor cross‐sectional data on hurricane forecasting

This paper addresses the impact of moisture profile data sets derived from the Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) for the assimilation and forecasts of hurricanes. LASE is a vertical profiler for moisture measurements that was developed at NASA Langley Research Center. LASE was deployed on board the NASA DC‐8 research aircraft and provided vertical profiles of moisture in a hurricane environment during the Convection and Moisture Experiment‐4, which occurred in August and September 2001. In this preliminary study we show results from two types of experiments (with and without LASE data) that show improvements in track and intensity forecasts of hurricanes, Erin, Humberto and Gabrielle. When the LASE moisture profiles are assimilated, track errors are reduced by 100 km and intensity errors are reduced by 20–25% for 3 day forecasts.