Researchers test tropical cyclone deployment strategies

Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC researchers from the Cyclone Testing Station (CTS) at James Cook University and the University of Queensland met recently to discuss pre-tropical cyclone actions and undertake cyclone deployment strategy testing. 

The team, comprising of seven researchers, discussed how to deploy mobile weather stations in the event of a landfalling tropical cyclone in Queensland.

The team was led by project leaders Dr David Henderson (CTS) and Dr Matthew Mason (UQ), joined by Dr Daniel Smith (CTS), Dr Richard Krupar III (UQ) and CRC PhD students Korah Parackal (CTS), Mitchell Humphreys (CTS), and Thomas Kloetzke (UQ). 

Since 2012, Dr Henderson and his team have developed, maintained and improved the Surface Weather Information Relay and Logging Network (SWIRLnet). The SWIRLnet was built to better quantify surface weather conditions during landfalling tropical cyclones over the north east of Queensland. Further program objectives include the dissemination of near real-time community-embedded wind speed information to emergency services and data that supports the assessment of Australian building codes and standards in concert with housing and infrastructure damage surveys.

Since 2014, the program has been jointly operated by the Cyclone Testing Station and the Wind Research Laboratory at UQ. The current network encompasses six portable weather stations designed for rapid deployment 24‑ 48 hours prior to tropical cyclone landfall.

The scope of the three-day meeting between the CTS and UQ research group was to review and update strategies for future tropical cyclone deployments. On day one, the SWIRLnet team discussed and established a sophisticated checklist that includes important steps to undertake prior to deployment. The first of these is the decision-making process to determine whether SWIRLnet towers will be set up or not. This is largely dependent on tropical cyclone intensity and landfall area. Following up, all necessary equipment was listed that is required to deploy the towers. Further information of how and where to deploy, behavior during the deployment, risk and post damage assessment instructions were also discussed during the meeting.

On day two, the whole SWIRLnet group had the opportunity to assess the deployment strategy during a mock deployment. All six towers were set up in a public park to practice deployment strategies and to test their functionality. For the first time, a camera and a drone were officially tested during a deployment for rapid post-damage assessment after a tropical cyclone event.

On the last day, postdoctoral research fellow Dr Daniel Smith and CRC PhD students Korah Parackal and Thomas Kloetzke retrieved the data collected during the deployments and started to build a live website monitoring surface that will display real-time measurements. This web-interface will aid data dissemination and provide a better view on surface weather conditions during the tropical cyclone landfall process.