The National Hurricane Research Project (NHRP) was initiated in 1955 by the

United States Weather Bureau The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...

in response to the devastating 1954 hurricane season, which saw hurricanes ''Carol'', ''Edna'', and ''Hazel'' bring destruction and flooding to

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

and the

Mid-Atlantic States The Mid-Atlantic is a region of the United States located in the overlap between the nation's Northeastern and Southeastern states. Traditional definitions include seven U.S. states: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virg ...

. Robert Simpson, a Weather Bureau meteorologist who had participated in Air Force hurricane reconnaissance flights as an observer, was appointed as the first director of NHRP and organized the Research Operations Base at Morrison Air Force Base (now

Palm Beach International Airport Palm Beach International Airport – also known as PBI Airport and historically as Morrison Field & Palm Beach Air Force Base – is a public airport in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States located just west of the city of West Palm Beach ...

) in West Palm Beach, FL in 1956.

Description

During the first three years of the Project, scientists used three specially instrumented Air Force

Hurricane Hunters Hurricane hunters, typhoon hunters, or cyclone hunters are aircrews that fly into tropical cyclones to gather weather data. In the United States, the organizations that fly these missions are the United States Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather ...

aircraft with crews on bailment from the 55th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron. They flew missions into hurricanes ''Greta'' (1956), ''Audrey'' (1957), ''Daisy'' (1958), and ''Helene'' (1958) in this initial period, collecting data which delineated the structure and energy budget of hurricanes for the first time. In 1959, the Project was moved to Miami and collocated with the Miami hurricane forecast office. Simpson left the Project to complete his doctoral degree and Robert Cecil Gentry was appointed NHRP director. The

Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce (DOC) is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. It is responsible for gathering data for business ...

leased two

Douglas DC-6 The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, Douglas reworked it after the war to compete ...

aircraft and received a

Martin B-57 Canberra The Martin B-57 Canberra is an American-built, twin-engined tactical bomber and reconnaissance aircraft that entered service with the United States Air Force (USAF) in 1953. The B-57 is a license-built version of the British English Electric ...

jet from the Air Force so that NHRP could continue to carry out airborne experiments on hurricanes. The combination of research project, forecast center, and aircraft facility was dubbed the "

National Hurricane Center The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is the division of the United States' NOAA/National Weather Service responsible for tracking and predicting tropical weather systems between the IERS Reference Meridian, Prime Meridian and the 140th meridian ...

" (NHC). This has caused later confusion, since 1967 the NHC name has been used exclusively by the forecast center. However the Project and Research Flight Facility (RFF) remained separate entities, with their own personnel, budgets, and objectives. During the 1960s, while NHRP continued to carry out research flights into hurricanes ''Donna'' (1960), ''Cleo'' (1964), and ''Betsy'' (1965), the Project also began to create computer models of hurricane circulation, formulated a statistical track program (NHC-64), wrote a manual on hurricane forecasting, and evaluate the accuracy of track forecasts. Starting with

Hurricane Esther (1961) Hurricane Esther was the first large tropical cyclone to be discovered by satellite imagery. The fifth tropical cyclone, named storm, and hurricane of the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season, Esther developed from an area of disturbed weather hundreds ...

, NHRP was heavily involved with

Project Stormfury Project Stormfury was an attempt to weaken tropical cyclones by flying aircraft into them and seeding them with silver iodide. The project was run by the United States Government from 1962 to 1983. The hypothesis was that the silver iodide would ...

, the U. S. Government's experiment in hurricane modification. They seeded hurricane ''Beulah'' in 1963, but had to wait six more years before a suitable candidate storm entered their operational area. Late in 1964, the Project was renamed the National Hurricane Research Laboratory in recognition of it becoming a permanent institution within the Weather Bureau. This presaged the creation of the ''Environmental Research Laboratories'' the next year.

References

{{authority control Tropical cyclones National Weather Service