Up Close: Hugh Cobb of National Hurricane Center's TAFB

Dennis Feltgen
National Hurricane Center

May 13, 2009 — You might not know it, but Hugh Cobb is a very busy man.

As the branch chief of Tropical Analysis and Forecast Branch (TAFB) in Miami, Hugh Cobb leads a group of highly trained meteorologists working behind-the-scenes supporting the hurricane specialist unit at the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

During peak hurricane season, Cobb and his team — who specialize in marine meteorology, tropical meteorology, satellite imagery interpretation, and tropical weather analysis — are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. An integral part of the NHC, the branch performs forecasting, outreach, and support functions.

Cobb recently took some time to shed more light on the TAFB and his experience in leading the unit:

Q: How did you become interested in meteorology?
A: As a kid, I lived in Kansas for a while; my dad was in the Navy, so we moved around a lot. I saw a tornado there in 1968 and ever since then I have been fascinated with weather. Even at 8 years old, I already knew that I wanted to be a meteorologist. When we moved to Norfolk, Va., I became interested in hurricanes. Even though there was not much hurricane activity in the 1970s, especially along the East Coast, I always wanted to work at the Hurricane Center.

Q: How did you work your way into the NHC?
A: I took the long way around. After receiving my bachelor’s degree in meteorology in 1984 from Old Dominion University, I worked as an intern with NOAA in Camp Springs, Md., focusing on tropical meteorology. As an intern, I got to train at the Hurricane Center during the 1989 landfall of Hurricane Hugo. I was there for an entire week; I arrived when Hugo hit Puerto Rico and left the day after it hit Charleston, S.C. It was during that week that I met Max Mayfield (the former head of the NHC) and established connections that helped me get hired the following year.

Q: What were you hired to do at the NHC?
A: First, I worked as a forecaster for three and a half years at the Tropical Satellite Analysis and Forecast Branch, the predecessor to what’s now the TAFB. From there I went to the Wakefield, Va., weather forecast office for six years working as a science and operations officer. When I returned to NHC, I was first a lead forecaster for TAFB.

Q: Tell us more about work the TAFB does.
A: The hurricane specialist unit receives a lot of media attention, but the TAFB is more behind the scenes. We provide critical support to the hurricane specialist unit during the peak of the season.

For instance, many folks probably don’t know that our branch provides the satellite intensity estimates that help forecast tropical storm/cyclone tracks and rainfall amounts. We may not be up front writing advisories, but when a tropical cyclone is east of the Windward Islands [southern Caribbean closest to South America], one of the few intensity estimates hurricane specialists receive comes from our unit.

Q: What other kind of forecasts does the TAFB issue?
A: We also provide marine weather forecasts for a very large portion of the tropical Atlantic, the tropical East Pacific, and the South Pacific. We produce more than 100 graphical products a day, as well as high seas marine forecasts, offshore waters marine forecasts, tropical weather discussions, and surface weather analyses [maps plotting variables such as sea level temperature, pressure and cloud cover]. We also coordinate with other centers to create one of our most useful products — a unified surface analysis — which is essentially a combined summary of several other surface analyses.

Q: What new products are you working on now?
A: We’ve made tremendous strides in producing gridded marine forecasts [maps overlaid with grids that allow forecasters to zero in on specific locations]. Private entities are producing similar products, but they use prepackaged model data. We’re going to provide value-added forecaster input to the model data. It will also be interactive: forecasters will pull down these Web-based grids with the information fields they want to customize their own “route” forecasts.

Q: What’s the most satisfying part of the job?
A: The fact that we make a difference in many people’s lives. I feel very strongly about the mission of the unit, and I’m very proud of both the work we do and the services we provide. For example, boaters, coastal residents, and public and private sector industries make critical decisions based on our forecasts. Also, our storm intensity estimates are invaluable to hurricane specialists, in lieu of aircraft reconnaissance data.