A hurricane does not need to shake a building to move the ground. In 2012, Hurricane Isaac crossed Louisiana and produced tiny movements that were recorded by instruments designed for an entirely different purpose: studying earthquakes. The signals were far too small for people to feel, but they contained information about what was happening inside the storm’s turbulent lowest layer. Now Stanford researchers say those hidden signals could become another way to study hurricane strength and behavior.
The idea is unusual because forecasters normally look upward and outward when they track a hurricane. Satellites watch the cloud structure, radar observes rainfall and storm organization, aircraft measure conditions inside the storm, and buoys and weather stations collect measurements near the surface. Stanford’s work suggests there may be another place to look: the ground beneath the storm. Existing geophysical stations could potentially provide continuous measurements without sending another aircraft into dangerous weather.
