Texas Tech sends research team to study Hurricane Beryl on Gulf Coast

A team of researchers from Texas Tech's Hurricane Research Team was getting in position at points along the Texas Gulf Coast this weekend ahead of what is expected to be Hurricane Beryl's landfall late Sunday into Monday.

The Lubbock-based team deploys wind measurement systems into landfalling hurricanes to assist in better defining and understanding the wind field of record at landfall, according to Professor Brian Hirth, a researcher with the National Wind Institute who deployed to the Texas Gulf Coast as part of a team of nine faculty members and graduate students.

They left Lubbock late last week to stage along the Texas Gulf Coast at various locations, monitoring the storm's continuing projected shifts to the east over the last few days before setting up dozens of weather data collection systems.

"Our goal for Hurricane Beryl is to cover the landfall region with wind measurements that would otherwise be lacking to describe the variability and breadth of the wind field of this storm across the entire region the storm impacts," Hirth wrote in an email, responding to questions about the team's plans for Beryl.

Monitoring the storm's movements, and anticipating where to set up equipment, poses challenges, he wrote.

"No two hurricanes are the same; each has differing sizes, intensity, landfall location," Hirth wrote. "The biggest challenges (and fun) prior to landfall revolve around the deployment logistics. As we head to the coast and plan our deployment, we have to accurately forecast where we believe the strongest winds will occur. Depending on where landfall occurs, there may also be significant storm surge threat, and we have to pay close attention storm surge inundation forecasts as well to make sure we keep our deployments out of the water. Ultimately, we have to effectively separate the landfall region into four regions for each truck to have a 'zone' to work within. During the retrieval process, we have to be aware of all of the post-landfall hazards that can occur including flooded roads, downed trees and power lines."

The research team's mission is to mitigate the effects of landfilling hurricanes on life and property, according to its website. The last hurricane it was deployed to was Hurricane Ida in 2021 in Louisiana.

The team is using 48 of its StickNet weather monitoring platforms which are broken down into groups of 12 and distributed amongst four trailers, according to Hirth. The SN platforms allow for measurements of temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and wind direction.

"As the storm makes landfall, we’re most interested in understanding what and where the highest wind speeds are," Hirth wrote. "The StickNet measurements are ingested in real-time into a wind field analysis system that is used by public and private entities to best understand where the hardest hit areas are so that resources can be more efficiently and effectively deployed."

Along with its own research applications, Hirth wrote that summaries of the team's immediate data are also relayed to various NOAA entities, including the regional National Weather Service offices.

"Our goal is to contribute to increasing our resiliency to these events in the future," Hirth wrote. "By collecting comprehensive measurements of the hurricane wind field at landfall, we can improve our understanding of the structure and evolution of the wind across the landfall region and relate these measurements to the improvement of current building codes in hurricane prone regions. The data we collect in Beryl will add to a growing archive of data from many storms that can be leveraged to develop more advanced statistical analyses of the structure and distribution of the wind in a wide range of hurricanes."

On July 2, according to the team's social media, the team was ready to deploy its StickNet weather monitoring equipment ahead of Beryl. On July 6, the team posted that they had been deployed to the coastline.

More:Live updates for Hurricane Beryl: Storm turns north, Mayor declares State of Disaster

Texas Tech 2024 Hurricane Outlook

The main takeaway from the Texas Tech team's pre-hurricane season outlook — it's going to be an active season.

The TTHRT published an article through Tech's National Wind Institute in June where it stated that there are several factors making this season an active one, including:

• Record warm ocean temperatures.
• La Nina climate conditions reducing tropical wind shear.
• Above-normal West African monsoons to produce the easterly atmospheric waves that create hurricanes.
• Light Atlantic trade winds that aid hurricane development and keep ocean waters warm (which fuels tropical cyclone development). 

The team also has new equipment going into this season.

In June, the team tested their 48 SitckNet platforms to ensure the technology was storm-ready with the platforms receiving new and fleet-standardized instrumentation as well as an upgraded battery system.

The team also received new F-350 trucks to replace older vehicles.