On September 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene struck the Gulf Coast of Florida, causing significant storm surges and affecting many communities in its trajectory. Simultaneously, NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) captured significant atmospheric disturbances created by the hurricane, located about 55 miles above the surface.
On September 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene struck the Gulf Coast of Florida, causing significant storm surges and affecting many communities in its trajectory. Simultaneously, NASA’s Atmospheric Waves Experiment (AWE) captured significant atmospheric disturbances created by the hurricane, located about 55 miles above the surface. This research helps us comprehend how weather on Earth can influence space conditions, which is a key focus for NASA as they study how our space environment can disrupt satellites, communications, and technology.
The large ripples in the upper atmosphere, referred to as atmospheric gravity waves, are displayed in AWE’s images as concentric bands (shown here in red, yellow, and blue) radiating from northern Florida.
“Similar to how ripples spread from a stone dropped in a pond, circular waves from Helene can be seen expanding westward from Florida’s northwest coast,” explained Ludger Scherliess, the principal investigator for AWE at Utah State University in Logan.
Launched in November 2023 and positioned on the exterior of the International Space Station, the AWE instrument observes Earth’s surface, searching for atmospheric gravity waves—patterns similar to ripples created by disturbances in the atmosphere, including intense thunderstorms, tornadoes, tsunamis, wind gusts over mountains, and hurricanes. It detects these waves by monitoring variations in brightness within luminous bands of light known as airglow found in Earth’s mesosphere. AWE’s exploration of the gravity waves generated by terrestrial weather assists NASA in determining their effects on space weather.
The observations of gravity waves stemming from Hurricane Helene represent some of the first publicly released images from AWE, confirming the instrument’s capability to detect the influence hurricanes have on the upper atmosphere of Earth.