FAIRHOPE, Ala. — U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice and Science, has announced that the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will award $525,539 to the University of South Alabama Center for Hurricane Intensity and Landfall Investigation (CHILI). USA researchers will use this funding to improve hurricane landfall and intensity predictions, as well as other local severe weather forecasts. Shelby was instrumental in securing the money for USA’s research.

“With the start of the 2009 hurricane season, we are reminded that the Gulf Coast is particularly vulnerable to the destruction caused by hurricanes and severe tropical weather,” Shelby stated in a press release. “The research conducted at the USA Center for Hurricane Intensity and Landfall Research will provide coastal communities a better picture of what to expect from tropical events so that they can be better prepared for these natural hazards.”

CHILI was initially created with the help of NOAA, and the first four mesonet weather sites were funded by the National Science Foundation. The latest funding will enable the research team to continue to operate and at the same time nearly double the number of weather stations they currently maintain.

That will result in a total of 28 mesonet stations spread from nearby Mississippi coastal and inland counties, through part of the Florida panhandle and into southeast Alabama.

The stations provide researchers, National Weather Service forecasters and the general public real-time and archived weather data around the clock through an Internet portal.

Baldwin County weather stations are currently in place at Bay Minette, Fairhope, Robertsdale and Elberta. As early as this summer, additional stations will begin gathering data at Fort Morgan, Gasque, Gulf Shores and Foley.

“The center is in its third year, and we’re hoping to keep it going beyond that,” said Dr. Sytske Kimball, a USA associate professor and CHILI director. She noted that the team housed in USA’s Research and Technology Park concentrate on hurricane modeling, along with monitoring of conditions and physical processes that might have an impact on the development and direction of the storms as they approach shore.

Kimball said her researchers have been modeling hurricanes such as Ivan, Katrina and other storms that have made landfall along the Gulf Coast. Looking at a wide range of atmospheric conditions in force at the time could help add to the bank of knowledge about what the next destructive storm might do and why.

Among the hardware on the ground is a high performance computer cluster (HPCC). Collaborating with NOAA’s Environmental Modeling Center, CHILI will use its collected data to validate and test the new operational hurricane model, the H-WRF, to be run on the HPCC, according to the CHILI Web site.

Data is collected through the weather station network, as well as sensors observing ocean currents and waves from the bottom of the Gulf. The sensors are deployed south of Mobile Bay at the beginning of each Atlantic Hurricane Season and retrieved when the season ends.

“If a storm ever hits in the area, we share our data with (NOAA),” Kimball said. “What we’re aiming toward — the ultimate goal — is to do targeted evacuations.”

Knowing the topography of the coastal region, along with the characteristics of a particular storm and what it might do based on accumulated research could help local, state and federal emergency management officials decide which residents would be safer if they simply sheltered in place.

Kimball said, “That way people will know what to expect. Will it be a rain or wind event? Will there be a (tremendous) storm surge?”

More can also be learned about the more common severe thunderstorms, which are also charted with the help of the CHILI weather stations. National Weather Service forecasters in Mobile and Tallahassee use the data to monitor changing conditions.

“We use them for frontal passages, and some are located at public schools. We encourage teachers to incorporate weather instruction in the curriculum,” Kimball said.

Speaking about the funding, she continued, saying, “For residents here, that’s great news. The stations are ready, and we’re putting them to good use for forecasting and education. We’d like to than the senator for his efforts.”

To learn more about the program, and to access weather data, visit http://chiliweb.southalabama.edu.