Haiyan Jiang
Florida International University, FL·Earth & Environmental Science
When hurricanes, or tropical cyclones, move onto land, their heavy rain causes inland flooding that is among their deadliest and costliest effects. Forecasts of hurricane tracks have improved greatly and intensity forecasts somewhat, but rainfall forecasts have barely improved.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
- Topics
tropical cyclones
hurricanes
landfall
- Grants
- 1 known grant, last ended Sep 2026
What they work on
- Characterize how tropical cyclone rainfall distribution and asymmetry change before, during and after landfall, using statistical analysis of long-term satellite observations.
- Compare rainfall patterns of landfalling tropical cyclones with storms that stay over the ocean, to isolate how land interaction reshapes precipitation.
- Test how the daily heating cycle, extratropical transition, vertical wind shear, moisture and sea surface temperature influence the location of the heaviest rain in landfalling storms.
More about the research
The hardest part is predicting where the heaviest rain will fall, not just how much. This project aims to explain how rainfall patterns form and change as storms come ashore.
Why it matters
Hurricane rainfall flooding threatens coastal and inland communities. A better understanding of where landfalling storms drop their heaviest rain could improve rainfall forecasts. That could help forecasters and emergency managers warn people and prepare for flooding.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Gary Lackmann
North Carolina State University, NC·Earth & Environmental Science
Assess how a warming climate shifts tropical cyclone activity and landfall locations in the North Atlantic, using observations and global climate model simulations that resolve individual storms.
Gan Zhang
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Earth & Environmental Science
Map the limits of how far ahead high-impact tropical and mid-latitude cyclones can be predicted, using new AI weather forecasting models, and identify the starting conditions that control storm development.
Yunji Zhang
Pennsylvania State University, PA·Earth & Environmental Science
Measure how cloud-radiation forcing changes buoyancy, vertical motion and moist entropy in shallow convection, deep convection and stratiform rain, using convection-permitting numerical model experiments.
The school
Florida International University: 9 labs on PI Pages, $326M a year on research, 264 research doctorates a year.
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