Any hurricane that forms in the Gulf of America is a direct threat to Louisiana and its neighboring states. But most seasonal forecasts focus on the entire North Atlantic Basin, including areas where storms may never come close to any land, much less the U.S. Gulf Coast.
A Gulf-specific forecast developed at LSU’s Coastal Meteorology (COMET) Lab addresses that issue by providing storm information specifically geared toward the Gulf region. The lab is run by Paul Miller, an associate professor at LSU who founded it in 2019.
“We decided that a Gulf-specific forecast could help state officials and Gulf-area residents better understand how active the upcoming season might be in their part of the Atlantic,” said Miller, who teaches in the Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences in the College of the Coast & Environment.
Miller said the LSU-Velocity Risk Gulf Hurricane Outlook is one example of how the COMET Lab delivers real benefits to Louisiana. “A lot of forecasts tend to align with each other each year. But ours works a lot differently than some of the other forecasts that are geared towards larger areas of the ocean,” he said.
“We’re not the world’s leading hurricane research lab—and we don’t try to be. Instead, we prioritize meeting the largest research gaps relevant to Louisiana residents, spanning a wide variety of weather hazards.
“We want to make sure Louisianans experience a clear return-on-investment from our lab’s activities.”
Ways the lab supports the state also include:
- Helping forecast storm surge in real time and informing the decision on when to close flood barriers before a tropical system hits land.
- Developing rainfall models to support flood prevention efforts.
- Studying weather patterns that cause drought and low coastal water levels that can lead to marsh loss during dry spells on the Gulf Coast.
- Saharan Dust Research
- One area of study that incorporates both air quality and tropical weather is the lab’s research on Saharan dust clouds, which are blown across the Atlantic in an air mass called the Saharan Air Layer, or SAL.
“So, this sort of far-off distant concept of Saharan dust is actually something that is kind of important to folks here in Louisiana,” Miller said.
This dust can shut down thunderstorm activity in the U.S. Caribbean territories, a key area of research in the COMET Lab, and cause respiratory problems when it reaches the Southeast U.S. The SAL can also suppress hurricane activity in the Atlantic.
“Our lab just launched a new project with the Office of Naval Research to determine how dust-dimmed sunlight can affect ocean temperatures in the Atlantic’s most active hurricane breeding grounds,” Miller said.
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