Ghassan Alaka

Dr. Ghassan (Gus) Alaka is a Meteorologist in the Hurricane Research Division at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, FL, where he focuses on numerical hurricane prediction models and transitions of research to operations (R2O). Gus is one of the lead developers of operational hurricane forecast models at NOAA, including the Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System (HAFS) and the Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting (HWRF) model. Gus leads research activities into numerous hurricane-focused topics, including multi-storm and multi-scale interactions, tropical cyclogenesis, forecast verification, and large-scale dynamics. He was a lead developer of an experimental version of HWRF, called the “Basin-scale HWRF” which showed that storm-following nests are an efficient way to improve hurricane intensity forecasts (see this BAMS study). Gus has extensive experience creating and evaluating tropical cyclone forecast guidance, and regularly provides experimental guidance to partners in NOAA’s Hurricane Field Program. Forecast guidance for operational and NOAA experimental models can be viewed on the publicly available AOML Hurricane Model Viewer. Gus is a regular crew member and lead project scientist aboard the NOAA WP-3D Hurricane Hunter reconnaissance missions, where he has flown over 50 missions to collect data that is ingested directly into the numerical models. He is an excellent communicator who represents HRD internationally and in outreach throughout the South Florida community. Gus received a B.S.E. in Earth System Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University in Fort Collins. He is originally from just north of Boston, Massachusetts.