Supervisors

Matthew Mason (QUT), David Henderson (JCU), John Ginger (JCU)

The sparse array of robust anemometers across tropical Australia means that for the majority of landfalling tropical cyclones we have few, if any, ground based, community embedded measurements of their intensity. This is detrimental when trying to understand the risk these events pose to our coastal communities. Additionally, not having reliable records of peak wind and wind-driven-rain conditions during tropical cyclones makes it difficult for building codes and standards to be sensibly written so that the built environment can be adequately designed to protect people and property.

To address this information short fall, the Surface Weather Information Relay and Logging Network (SWIRLnet) of ruggedized portable weather stations was developed at the Cyclone Testing Station (JCU). The current network of six portable weather stations are deployed in front of landfalling tropical cyclones to capture real-time surface weather conditions (wind speed, pressure, temperature) near to the surface and within the built environment that can be archived for analysis and are transmitted in near-real-time for rapid situational awareness and potential damage assessment.

The aim of this PhD project will be to deploy the SWIRLnet to capture field data from landfalling tropical cyclones, primarily along the Queensland coastline, and oversee the expansion of the current network of data acquisition stations. Funding dependent, this may also include the incorporation of rainfall measurement devices. Additionally, the student will be required to analyse and apply this information to further research in one of the areas of wind and wind driven rain vulnerability and vulnerability modelling, tropical cyclone boundary layer wind field modelling, or tropical cyclone risk assessment. The student will also play a role in interfacing with emergency services providers to facilitate the real-time dissemination of data.

Interested students can be located at either QUT (Brisbane) or JCU (Townsville) and would ideally have an engineering, atmospheric science or physics undergraduate/Masters degree.