A NOAA ship and aircraft responded to last week’s nor’easter which affected the mid Atlantic region and pounded the Hampton Roads area of southeast VA. NOAA provided critical aerial and underwater (hydrographic) imagery to the port community, local officials, and residents impacted by the storm.
From the NOAA press release:
NOAA Plane Captures Photos of Flooding & Grounded Barge
NOAA Cessna Citation (tail number N52RF), based out of Tampa, a versatile twin-engine jet aircraft, acquired remote sensing imagery this weekend along the Hampton Roads shoreline. The aircraft is equipped with two equal-sized camera ports which can support a wide variety of remote sensing configurations including large format aerial photography. Now available on Google Earth, some images snapped by the plane include…the grounded barge on Virginia Beach.
NOAA Ship Finds Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel Safe
NOAA Ship Thomas Jefferson, homeported in Norfolk, conducted emergency hydrographic surveys in Cape Henry and the Elizabeth River to locate submerged debris, shoals, and other hazards to maritime navigation caused by the storm. Attached is an image captured by a multibeam echo sounder that shows the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel riprap is holding and the tunnel is safe. NOAA survey vessels like the Thomas Jefferson conduct surveys in support of updating NOAA nautical charts, as well as respond when plane crashes, vessel groundings, or other accidents require underwater coastal searches and investigations.
Tom Tasselmyer
The image above shows that tropical waves continue the move off the west African coast. These disturbances are often the first phase in the development of a tropical storm or hurricane.
Early morning satellite imagery on Tuesday shows two systems. One is Ida, on the north Gulf coast and the other is a broad low pressure area in the central Atlantic that presents only a small chance of tropical development. Notice that both of these systems are on the south edge of large areas of surface high pressure.
