“To better protect our coastal communities we need to better model, understand and predict the complex and dynamic nearshore environment.”-Brittany Bruder, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center

Duck, North Carolina, where a major weather research project has been ongoing since 2019.

It has been more than 130 years since modern weather science started, yet even after decades of collecting hurricane data within the United States, scientists still don’t understand the weather!

An ancient U.S. Army Corps of Engineers LARC-V is used to carry a remote control boat (oceanographic research drone) for the DuNEx.

An attempt to rectify that will officially begin in Autumn 2021, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It is called the During Nearshore Event Experiment (DuNEx), or DUring Nearshore Event eXperiment (DUNEX), being conducted by the U.S. Coastal Research Program.  It would’ve happened sooner but there was a “…delay in their planning and preparation for the upcoming… …DUNEX field experiment due to the COVID-19 pandemic.” 

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo.

Preparations for DuNEx 2021 have been ongoing since 2019, and the whole thing is not expected to conclude until Winter 2022!  The goal is to be better able to predict what a storm will do, and to advise coastal communities on short-term and long-term plans of action.

June 2021: SPCMSC scientists travel to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to conduct DUNEX

Hurricane prep 2021: GEORGIA MILITIA WARMS-UP THE D-R-M-K-T

September 2020: ERDC researchers participate in the DUring Nearshore Event eXperiment 

LARC-V:  U.S. NAVY KEEPS OLD U.S. ARMY BOAT-TRUCK AFLOAT