Author: Jack Parrish and Paul Flaherty
Flight Director/Meteorologist

NOAA G-IV Begins Winter Storms Research

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January 16 through February 14, 2007

March 1, 2007
Once again, a double negative for the G-IV crew. No NCEP tasking for Friday, with a negative outlook for Saturday.

March 2, 2007
Once again, a double negative for the G-IV crew. No NCEP tasking for Saturday, with a negative outlook for Sunday.

March 3, 2007
The G-IV crew is tasked for a mission tomorrow, Sunday. Sunday's track will help forecasters with a SE Alaska heavy snow event and a NW US/Vancouver heavy rain event. The second day outlook for Monday is negative. We will see how everything goes with tomorrow's flight before declaring Monday a hard down day.

March 4, 2007
The G-IV crew is preparing to head out to the airport to fly a track to help forecasters with some weather up in the NE Pacific Ocean. Tomorrow, Monday, the G-IV has no NCEP tasking and the crew will take a hard down day to reset the clock, unless some needed work is discovered today on Gonzo by the crew. Two University of Hawaii students should be joining us for today's flight!

The G-IV crew just returned from flying a successful track for a total of 7.7 hours of time flown for today. Our two guests from the University of Hawaii got the opportunity to launch a couple of dropwindsondes and work some of them up at the flight director's station. With no Monday NCEP tasking, the crew will enjoy a hard down day on Monday. The outlook for Tuesday is currently negative. There are 24.5 mission hours left in the project, with 10 more hours to get us home.

March 5, 2007
There is not an NCEP tasking for Tuesday. The outlook for Wednesday is also negative. The G-IV crew is hard down today to reset the clock. The NCEP folks have already given a strong indication that they would like us to fly Thursday, March 8th. We'll monitor that over the next couple of days. As WSR-07 winds down, we will begin to look ahead toward next week. CARCAH has passed on that the last availability for a Honolulu to Honolulu tasked mission will be based on 3/12/00Z. In addition, there will likely be a request to drop a few dropwindsondes when we make our way back to the mainland. The crew is anticipating three more taskings between now and then.

March 6, 2007
The G-IV crew have been tasked to fly a track tomorrow to help forecasters with a NW US heavy precipitation event, as well as a SE US cyclogenesis/heavy precipitation event next weekend. Although it is a slightly shorter mission than we've been flying lately. As of right now, the 2-day outlook is negative.

March 7, 2007
While the G-IV crew prepares to fly this afternoon, we will also start preparing for tomorrow's NCEP tasking. The crew is tasked to fly Thursday for just under 8 hours.

The G-IV crew returned from a successful mission.

March 8, 2007
As the crew prepares to head out to the airport to fly a mission today, we will get ready to do the same thing on Friday. On Friday, we are once again tasked to fly just under 8 hours. If all goes according to plan, Friday's flight will be our last Honolulu to Honolulu mission. What that means for the crew - we will find out later today in my discussion with NCEP. They will have a few hours left over, which they will use during our mission en route.

Assuming that today and tomorrow's NCEP taskings go as planned, the G-IV will have approximately 2.5 hours remaining for the project. Since the possibility of the G-IV leaving earlier than planned has increased rather rapidly over the past 2 days (with 3 taskings in 3 days), we'll plan on taking Saturday, March 10th to get the container packed up, tie up loose ends, pack up our data and get prepared to depart Hawaii. This will allow us to be available to fly an NCEP tasked mission en route to the states as early as Sunday the 11th of March. We will get word on that possibility over the next day or two. If tasked to fly a mission en route on Sunday, the G-IV crew wouldneed to be hard down on Monday. We would then depart for MacDill first thing Tuesday morning. If NCEP chooses not to task us for a mission en route for 11 March, then Sunday will be declared a hard down day and we will stand by in Honolulu to head Eastward as soon as NCEP requests it.

The G-IV crew just returned from a successful mission. Tomorrow, the crew will again fly in support of a possible severe weather outbreak in the Mississippi Valley early next week.

March 9, 2007
The G-IV crew is currently getting ready for another mission flight. This weekend, while everyone east of here turns their clocks ahead an hour, we here in Hawaii will not. That means we will be 6-hours behind the folks in Tamlpa, instead of five. With the mostly likely scenario now being that we depart on Monday morning, we will only have to deal with that for one day. We'll know more on that tomorrow.

March 10, 2007
Aloha

March 11, 2007
Aloha

March 12, 2007
Aloha

March 13, 2007
Aloha

March 14, 2007
Aloha

March 15, 2007
Aloha