How do we get hurricanes? Chris Davis on the PREDICT project

NCAR Scientist Chris Davis and colleagues are launching a major field project in the tropical Atlantic Ocean to solve a central mystery of hurricanes: why do certain clusters of tropical thunderstorms grow into the often-deadly storms while many others dissipate? (See http://www2.ucar.edu/news/hurricane-s... ) The results should eventually help forecasters provide more advance warning to those in harm's way.

PREDICT, the Pre-Depression Investigation of Cloud Systems in the Tropics, runs from August 15 to September 30, 2010, the height of hurricane season. The project is funded primarily by the National Science Foundation (NSF), NCAR's sponsor.

In addition to NCAR, collaborators include the Naval Postgraduate School; University at Albany-SUNY; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; University of Miami; NorthWest Research Associates, Redmond, Washington; New Mexico Tech; Purdue University; and University of Wisconsin--Madison.