Mobile ground-based SMART radar observations and wind retrievals during the landfall of Hurricane Harvey (2017)

Abstract

This article describes a unique ground-based weather radar dataset collected during the landfall of Hurricane Harvey (2017) along the United States Gulf Coast, documents the wind retrievals conducted with this dataset, and reports on the location of the archive of the data and wind retrievals so that others may gain access and use of these data. Datasets from C-band dual-polarimetric Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching (SMART) radar and the United States National Weather Service WSR-88D in Corpus Christi, Texas, are presented, along with dual-Doppler analyses before and during Harvey's landfall on the United States Gulf Coast. The quality assurance and dual-Doppler wind synthesis procedures are detailed. Nearly 8 hr of dual-Doppler wind analyses were constructed, providing an unprecedented dataset for use in understanding hurricane dynamics at landfall and validating numerical simulations of Hurricane Harvey. In addition, raw, dual-polarization data not used in the dual-Doppler syntheses, but included in each radar dataset, are also summarized.