As part of a new planetarium show called “Dynamic Earth”, the NCSA working with NCAR to visualize terabytes of data related to the devastating Katrina hurricane. The result is this beautiful, if not a bit scary, visualization of one of the worst hurricanes to land on US shores.
A hurricane research team at the Earth System Laboratory, led by Wei Wang, computed the evolution of the storm using a complex numerical weather prediction model. Running this mathematical model on the Bluefire supercomputer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research yielded terabytes of data, which AVL then transformed into a striking animation of the 36-hour period when the storm is gaining energy over the warm ocean. Volume-rendered clouds show abundant moisture. Trajectories follow moist air rising into intense “hot tower” thunderstorms and trace strong winds around the eye wall; rapidly rising air is yellow, while sinking air is blue. The sun, moon, and stars show the passing of time.
