Hurricane Laura Deployment
An example IOP post.
Laura made landfall at Cameron, LA as a category 4 hurricane on Thursday, August 27th, 2020 at ≈ 12:10 A.M. CDT / 0510z. Catastrophic damage occurred along the coast near Cameron, as well as inland toward Lake Charles and beyond. The UAH MIPS and MAX measurement systems were deployed just north of Lake Charles, LA throughout the event and observed gusts of 104 mph and 87 mph, respectively.
Below are pictures and videos taken by Nick Perlaky at various times during the event.
Setup and Science Goals
Pre-Arrival
Eye Wall
The eye wall of Laura was not as intense as expected at the UAH MIPS location. We observed a maximum wind gust of 104 mphtime?. Sustained winds varied between 50 and 75 mph during the eye wall. Most gusts peaked around 90 mph. These measurements were taken at ≈3m AGL, as our 10m telescoping mast would not have survived the higher wind gusts.
Small branches and pieces of tin roofing blew about the MIPS location during and after the eywall.
KLCH WSR-88D Failure
Just before 1:00 A.M. CDT, the MIPS team observed several bright blue flashes on the southern horizon. These were thought to be the cause of lost data from KLCH, though later imagery showed complete destruction of the radome and dish.
Here are the final 30 scans from KLCH on 2020-08-27:
Post-Event
Many wave-like features were observed in the hours after storm passage. (Perhaps Tim can speak to this?)