Franchesca came up about 5000ft in elevation from her hometown of Miami,
Florida, to Fort Collins Colorado to study hurricanes! Finishing her junior
year, she is a mathematics major at Florica International University. Not
suprisingly, her research interest is tropical meteorology.
She worked alongside Professor Wayne Schubert this summer studying warm-ring structures in intense hurricanes. Typical hurricanes have a warm-core structure such that the warmest temperatures occur in the center of the hurricane. However, weather reconnaissance aircraft data has observed warm-rings in intense hurricanes. A warm-ring structure results when the warmest temperature anomalies occur on the outer edge of the eye. Franchesca's research derived the thermal wind equation from the hydrostatic and the gradient wind equations to analyze the temperature, tangential velocity, and the absolute vorticity profiles. Using observed hurricanes, a warm-ring structure was simulated with the thermal wind equation as the basis. 
Warm-ring Structures in Intense Hurricanes is the title of Franchesca's research poster for the summer. Apart from school and tropical meteorology, Franchesca enjoys reading, drawing, and spending time with family. |