Skip to main content

LUP Student Papers

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

A Case Study of hurricane Sandy - According to ERA-Interim

Staerk, Marie LU (2013) FYSK01 20131
Department of Physics
Abstract
In late October 2012 hurricane Sandy caused a lot of damage to the islands in the Caribbean Sea and later on (as an extratropical cyclone) to the United States; New Jersey. The system was different in many ways relative to “normal” hurricanes, e.g. its track, its lack of eye at times it was classified as a hurricane and its great size which all partly was due to the prevailing circulations in the upper troposphere at the time being. It was the interaction with an upper level trough that made Sandy to reintensify before she made landfall in New Jersey which resulted in a severe storm surge. Sandy got a lot of attention in media, which started to refer her as the “Frankenstorm”, a very suitable nickname.
In this thesis it is investigated... (More)
In late October 2012 hurricane Sandy caused a lot of damage to the islands in the Caribbean Sea and later on (as an extratropical cyclone) to the United States; New Jersey. The system was different in many ways relative to “normal” hurricanes, e.g. its track, its lack of eye at times it was classified as a hurricane and its great size which all partly was due to the prevailing circulations in the upper troposphere at the time being. It was the interaction with an upper level trough that made Sandy to reintensify before she made landfall in New Jersey which resulted in a severe storm surge. Sandy got a lot of attention in media, which started to refer her as the “Frankenstorm”, a very suitable nickname.
In this thesis it is investigated when Sandy experienced mostly baroclinic or barotropic features with the help of the reanalysis system ERA-Interim. Whether a weather system experiences baroclinic or barotropic features depends on the surrounding environment. This interaction between Sandy and her surroundings is treated in the Case Study which also covers why Sandy obtained the track that she did and why she did not experience an eye at certain times.
To be able to see how well the reanalysis performed on Sandy a comparison of i.e. mean sea level pressure (MSLP) and maximum sustained winds is made between the obtained values from ERA-Interim and the best estimates of Sandy presented by the National Hurricane Center(NHC). The values differ to quite a great extent (where the values from ERA-Interim underperform) and the reasons for that are mostly due to the coarse resolution of the reanalysis but also due to that ERA-Interim does not make use of all available observations from satellites. However, the overall tendencies of Sandy’s track and MSLP were captured by ERA-Interim. (Less)
Abstract (Swedish)
Sent i oktober 2012 så orsakade orkanen Sandy stor skada på de Karibiska öarna men senare även i USA, New Jersey, då som ett extratropiskt system. Vädersystemet var annorlunda på många vis jämfört med en "normal" orkan med avseende på dess bana, avsaknaden av ett öga och dess enorma storlek. Dessa egenskaper berodde alla på den rådande cirkulationen i den övre troposfären. Det var växelverkan mellan ett övre nivås tråg och Sandy som gjorde att Sandy åter intensifierades innan hon nådde USA:s östra kust vid New Jersey vilket resulterade i att höga vågor slog in mot kusten och ödelade mycket i sin väg. Sandy fick mycket uppmärksamhet utav media och hon fick det passande smeknamnet "Frankenstorm".
I denna uppsats undersöks det när Sandy... (More)
Sent i oktober 2012 så orsakade orkanen Sandy stor skada på de Karibiska öarna men senare även i USA, New Jersey, då som ett extratropiskt system. Vädersystemet var annorlunda på många vis jämfört med en "normal" orkan med avseende på dess bana, avsaknaden av ett öga och dess enorma storlek. Dessa egenskaper berodde alla på den rådande cirkulationen i den övre troposfären. Det var växelverkan mellan ett övre nivås tråg och Sandy som gjorde att Sandy åter intensifierades innan hon nådde USA:s östra kust vid New Jersey vilket resulterade i att höga vågor slog in mot kusten och ödelade mycket i sin väg. Sandy fick mycket uppmärksamhet utav media och hon fick det passande smeknamnet "Frankenstorm".
I denna uppsats undersöks det när Sandy hade mest baroklina eller barotropa egenskaper med hjälp utav ERA-Interim vilket är ett reanalys system. Om ett vädersystem upplever till mestadels baroklina eller barotropa egenskaper beror till stor del på omgivningen. Växelverkan mellan Sandy och systemets omgivningar behandlas i en fallstudi som också behandlar varför Sandy erhöll den bana hon fick och varför hon inte hade ett öga vid vissa tillfällen.
För att kunna se hur bra reanalyserna presterade på Sandy så gjordes en jämförelse mellan värden från ERA-Interim och "the National Hurriane Center" (NHC) på exempelvis det lägsta trycket vid havsnivå och de maximalt ihållande vindarna. Värdena skiljer sig ganska mycket åt, där värdena från ERA-Interim visar lägre värden än de från NHC. Detta beror på att ERA-Interim använder sig utav en lägre upplösning men även på grund utav att systemet inte använder sig utav alla tillgängliga observationer från satelliter. De övergripande trenderna för Sandys bana och lägsta tryck vid havsnivån kunde fångas utav ERA-Interim. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Staerk, Marie LU
supervisor
organization
course
FYSK01 20131
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
language
English
id
3970412
date added to LUP
2013-08-13 15:36:58
date last changed
2013-08-13 15:36:58
@misc{3970412,
  abstract     = {{In late October 2012 hurricane Sandy caused a lot of damage to the islands in the Caribbean Sea and later on (as an extratropical cyclone) to the United States; New Jersey. The system was different in many ways relative to “normal” hurricanes, e.g. its track, its lack of eye at times it was classified as a hurricane and its great size which all partly was due to the prevailing circulations in the upper troposphere at the time being. It was the interaction with an upper level trough that made Sandy to reintensify before she made landfall in New Jersey which resulted in a severe storm surge. Sandy got a lot of attention in media, which started to refer her as the “Frankenstorm”, a very suitable nickname.
In this thesis it is investigated when Sandy experienced mostly baroclinic or barotropic features with the help of the reanalysis system ERA-Interim. Whether a weather system experiences baroclinic or barotropic features depends on the surrounding environment. This interaction between Sandy and her surroundings is treated in the Case Study which also covers why Sandy obtained the track that she did and why she did not experience an eye at certain times.
To be able to see how well the reanalysis performed on Sandy a comparison of i.e. mean sea level pressure (MSLP) and maximum sustained winds is made between the obtained values from ERA-Interim and the best estimates of Sandy presented by the National Hurricane Center(NHC). The values differ to quite a great extent (where the values from ERA-Interim underperform) and the reasons for that are mostly due to the coarse resolution of the reanalysis but also due to that ERA-Interim does not make use of all available observations from satellites. However, the overall tendencies of Sandy’s track and MSLP were captured by ERA-Interim.}},
  author       = {{Staerk, Marie}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{A Case Study of hurricane Sandy - According to ERA-Interim}},
  year         = {{2013}},
}