We propose the use of a small unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with temperature, pressure, and relative humidity sensors to estimate sensible and latent heat fluxes over an active agricultural area in east-central Mississippi. The Bowen ratio method is applied to vertical soundings from the surface to 120 meters at 10-meter intervals. A number of flights were conducted at Mississippi State University during the late stages of the growing season with the purpose of obtaining heat flux estimates over different land surface/cover types. Results show that the UAV platform is able to provide reasonable heat and moisture flux estimates, and that the fluxes show substantial variability among different land cover types over a small spatial scale. Future work must be done to quantify the diurnal and seasonal changes in heat flux estimates over various crop types and investigate flight plans and sensor mounting options to maximize sensor precision.

Concentric eyewall formation and eyewall replacement cycles are intrinsic processes that determine the intensity of a tropical cyclone, as opposed to purely environmental factors such as wind shear or the ocean heat content. Although extensive research has been done in this area, there is not a single widely accepted theory on the formation of secondary eyewall structures. Many previous studies focused on dynamic processes in the inner core of a tropical cyclone that would precede and ultimately lead to the formation of a secondary eyewall. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 were frequently sampled by research aircraft which gathered a copious amount of data. During this time, Rita developed a secondary eyewall which eventually replaced the original eyewall. This thesis will investigate the formation of a secondary eyewall with particular emphasis on the rainband region, as observations show that an outer principal rainband transformed into the secondary ring. A high resolution, full physics model (MM5) initialized with global model forecast fields correctly predicted the secondary eyewall formation in Rita. The model output will be used to investigate both Katrina and Rita in terms of their PV generation characteristics since PV and vorticity maxima correlate well with wind maxima that accompany the eyewall and rainbands. Furthermore, dynamical processes such as vortex Rossby wave (VRW) activity in the inner core region will be analyzed. Comparison of the differences in the two storms might shed some light on dynamics that can lead to structure changes. Comparison of the model data with aircraft observation is used to validate the results. Doppler radar derived wind fields will be used to calculate the vertical vorticity. The vorticity field is closely related to PV and thus a manifestation of the PV generation process in the rainband. The investigation has shown that Rita?s principal rainband features higher PV generation rates at radii beyond 80 km. Both the azimuthal component and the projection of asymmetric PV generated by convection onto the azimuthal mean connected with the principal band are hypothesized to be of importance for the formation of the secondary eyewall. VRW were found not to be important for the initial formation of the ring but might enhance convective activity once the outer eyewall contracts.