The Operational Multi-scale Environmental model with Grid Adaptivity (OMEGA) represents a significant departure from the traditional methods used in numerical weather prediction and real-time hazard prediction. The advanced numerical and adaptive grid generation methods embodied in OMEGA have now been applied to hurricane simulation.
The key to efficient adaptation is the definition of adaptivity criteria. To provide higher resolution in the region of the storm requires first the identification of the storm center and the extent of the storm. Pressure minimum combined with other characteristics such as wind speed minimum is used as the primary adaptivity criterion.
Most of the animations below are created with Java applets. Please make sure your browser is Java enabled, and be patient while all the animation frames load.
This simulation shows the interaction of two hurricanes, Floyd and
Gert, in the Atlantic. As Floyd moves off the coast of the Eastern
United States, Gert appears in the lower boundary. The frames show
the amount of water vapor integrated vertically.
Animation (1 hourly images, 121 frames,
10.0 MB Total)