Blimp Typhoon Research in Guam: Final Update (for now)

I have written two posts about miniature blimp typhoon research that was going on in Guam from October 4, 2017 through (on or about) October 21, 2017.  The team of French researchers, working in conjunction with the US National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Office (WFO) at Guam came to Guam with three miniature blimps (aka AeroClippers)with weather equipment that could be released and then hopefully drawn into a tropical cyclone. The idea being that once the AeroClipper is drawn into a tropical cyclone it will be carried along with the tropical cyclone collecting meteorological data for up to 40 days, relaying the data back to the researchers (see my October 9th article for more information on the AeroClippers. Two AeroClippers were released from Guam, one on October 12th and the second on October 14th (for more information go to my October 14th article on the AeroClippers).

I found out a few days later from reading social media posts from the Facebook page of the NWS WFO at Guam that one of the flight of one of the AeroClipper (miniature blimps) was terminated early because winds were steering it toward the island of Saipan (north of Guam, see map below). Unfortunately, the weather was not favorable for the launch of the third AeroClipper. I was interested to learn that the scientists working with the AeroClipper gave a free lecture for the public at the University of Guam on the night of October 19th. I would have loved to be there, but . . . For more information see this short report from KUAM News).

I reached out to the NWS at Guam via Facebook messaging earlier this week, asking them to share one thing about the AeroClippers that they would like you (my readers) to know. This is their response:

US NWS WFO at Guam: I think the bottom line to take from this project is that this research is geared to test a concept to make it easier to insert weather instrumentation into a tropical cyclone in order to obtain nearly constant real-time monitoring of conditions inside a mature TC (tropical cyclone). The data, over time, could pave the way to break throughs in track, intensity, development rate, etc, of TCs. This data would be unparalleled except for infrequent cases that the TC transits a land observing station that is still functioning. There will be lessons-learned from this research, dealing with the design and instrumentation, but they should have some good information to gear them up for subsequent tests in the future, wherever they do another round.

I will attempt to follow How the AeroClipper research is going over the next several months. If I find out anything that I can report here, then I will write another blog post.

Blimp Typhoon Research in Guam: Follow-up 1

Earlier this week I wrote about some exciting research being conducted in Guam by French researchers from the CNES. Specifically they are using specially equipped unmanned miniature blimps called AeroClippers that are designed to fly in the eye of typhoons to collect various meteorological data. See my October 9th post for more information.

My friends at the US National Weather Service Guam shared some good news from the French researchers and their three AeroClippers. They have launched two AeroClippers. The first AeroClipper was launched on or about October 12th. The second AeroClipper was launched October 14th (that is this morning, Guam time). The post about the launch of the second AeroClipper has a video showing the launch of the second AeroClipper. This is very exciting and I wish the CNES researchers the best of luck as they track these two AeroClippers. As I understand it, there is one more AeroClipper to be launched.

JTWC is the Joint Typhoon Warning Center

My final article (for now) on the blimp (AeroClipper) typhoon research is on October 27th.

Miniature Blimp/balloon typhoon research in Guam

This is the first of at least a couple of posts about miniature blimp/balloon typhoon research going on in Guam in October of 2017. This post, divided into three parts,  is a little longer than my usual post. In the first section is an introduction and a little bit about Guam (focusing on geography). After providing some links to information about tropical cyclones in the second section, I share information from the NWS Guam about the typhoon research being conduction in Guam by researchers from the French CNES agency. Finally in section three, I provide a link(s) to more of my posts about the miniature blimp known as the AeroClipper.

1. INTRODUCTION AND ABOUT GUAM
A few months ago, I started to become familiar with the US NWS WFO at Guam because a NWS meteorologist I knew transferred to Guam. So, I found and bookmarked the US NWS Guam Facebook site  I check in with the NWS Guam Facebook page, in part because I am interested in learning more about typhoons. Just last week, I was checking out the NWS Guam’s Facebook page when I found out about some very interesting research that some researchers from France will be doing out of Guam from October 4th to October 21st (weather permitting). I want to share a little about that research with you, but before I do that a little geography and a little about Guam

As you can see, Guam, which is an unincorporated territory of the United States, is located in the Western Pacific. According to the entry for Guam in the CIA World Fact Book (go here), Guam is at 13.28 N, 144.47 E. Guam's climate is tropical marine (see the geography entry in CIA World Fact Book's entry for Guam. 

2. TYPHOONS AND THE AEROCLIPPER

As you may know, tropical cyclones in that part of the pacific where Guam is located are known as typhoons while tropical cyclones off of the atlantic coast and in the Gulf of Mexico are known as hurricanes. The National Weather Service has a nice module on tropical weather, including tropical cyclones at their Jet Stream Education site. Now, I know that both typhoons and hurricanes are tropical cyclones and I wanted to know more about Guam. I had heard references about the northwest pacific being known as typhoon alley, so I searched on typhoon alley and came up with an article from weather.com written in July 2016 that you may find here. I learned a lot about typhoons in general as well as the differences between typhoons and hurricanes. I then wrote to my friends at the NWS WFO at Guam to see if they had any comments on the article. They told me that the article covers it, stressing that “all the ingredients for tropical cyclone development are here all year round and little land mass to stop development — practically none until you reach the far western Pacific.

I am always interested in learning more about interesting weather related research involving aviation, including the use of balloons. So when I came upon the following Facebook post from the US NWS Guam at the end of last week, I was fascinated. It was after reading that Facebook post, which I am embedding below that I knew that I wanted to share this with you. The first thing I did was to learn a little more about Guam which I have shared in the beginning of this article. Please take a few moments to read about this fascinating research involving balloons known as AeroClippers. Hopefully, there will be a couple of nearby tropical cyclones so that the folk from CNES in France can do their research. I am fascinated by what the AeroClippers could mean to providing data that will help forecasters in the Western Pacific and elsewhere get data from the eye of the typhoon. I am looking forward to following the CNES AeroClipper research while they are in Guam and wish them the best. The Facebook post was posted on October 6, 2017.

Here are a couple of media articles from the Guam Press about the Aero Clipper. As always, I am never certain how long these links will be up.

• KUAM report and video about the AeroClipper, October 6, 2017
• Pacific Daily News report and video about the AeroClipper, October 6, 2017

3. MORE OF MY POSTS ABOUT THE MINATURE BLIMP KNOWN AS THE AEROCLIPPER

• October 14th: I posted on the launch of two of the AeroClippers by the CNES researchers working out of Guam
• My final article (for now) on the blimp (AeroClipper) typhoon research is on October 27th.