Risk modelling company AIR Worldwide Corporation is sponsoring research into the detailed structure of hurricane winds over land.

Researchers at Texas Tech University have been studying the variability of wind speeds over land using mobile observation platforms they designed and built. However, their efforts have been hampered by limited numbers of reliable observations since they do not have enough spatial coverage to document the hurricane wind field as it crosses the coastline ? an important factor for projecting the impact of an approaching storm on on-shore structures.

AIR, which models natural catastrophes in more than 40 countries and the risk from terrorism in the United States, announced yesterday that is has now offered funding that will allow the university to double the number of platforms researchers can deploy in the path of each approaching storm.

Each platform takes about two minutes to deploy, which means that researchers can strategically place a significant number of platforms in the path of an approaching hurricane.

Unlike most anemometers and recording systems which fail at even slightly elevated wind speeds and are rendered useless when power fails, Texas Tech?s mobile platforms ?virtually guarantee? reliable data acquisition since they have their own power source and can withstand wind speeds of 150 miles per hour.

Each mobile platform records a complete, high resolution, wind speed time history. The university said that coupled with data on the characteristics of the surrounding terrain, the platforms will provide a more accurate picture of the structure of hurricane wind fields.

?The scientific, engineering, and risk modelling communities will all benefit from the research being undertaken by Texas Tech,? said Dr. Jayanta Guin, vice president for research and modelling at AIR. Already the research team has an impressive track record for the collection of land-based wind speed data.

They were the only ones to obtain the only complete wind speed record from the eastern eye wall of Hurricane Katrina, which Dr. Guin noted has proven invaluable to the many meteorologists and wind engineers who continue to analyse the storm and its impact on structures.