Analysis of Essential Meteorological Elements Surrounding Typhoon Sinlaku by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
- 1 Meteorological Observation Centre, CMA, Beijing, China
- 2 Meteorological Observation Centre, CMA, Beijing, China
- 3 Meteorological Observation Centre, CMA, Beijing, China
Abstract
In this paper, a successful flight with an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surrounded Typhoon Sinlaku on 15 Sept., 2008 and the preliminary analysis of all the collected data during the observation period has been presented. It is the first time to adopt surrounding method to observe typhoon in mainland of China. During the 3 h field campaign, the flight altitude is about 500 m to observe the essential meteorological elements in boundary layer of typhoon. The average temperature is 22.57 ° C and ranged from 21.50 ° C to 25.80 ° C, while about the relative humidity, the maximum is 100%, the minimum is 80.60% and the average is 97.98%. As for the wind, the average wind speed is 19.68 m/s and the maximum is 30.03 m/s. The typhoon center is a warm structure, the closer to the center, the higher the temperature is and the lower the wind speed is. In conclusion, the mini-UAV has the capability to observe the boundary layer of typhoon.
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