Some Observations of Water Contents in Hurricanes

Abstract

Liquid-water-content measurements made during the 1957 and 1958 flights by the National Hurricane Research Project airplanes have been utilized in statistical analyses to determine some of the gross features of the water distribution in hurricanes. The water contents were generally well below, and only rarely approached, the theoretical value for an adiabatic process. The analyses indicate that, in the layer from 9000 to 18,000 ft, the water contents of the convective developments decreased with height. The fraction of the storm area occupied by convective developments was found to vary with the age of the storm, being at a maximum when a storm was at its peak intensity (lowest pressure). When computed for ring areas centered on the storm center, this fraction, the ?areas density? of convection, tended to decrease with increasing radius.