James Franklin

James Franklin is the Branch Chief of the Hurricane Specialist Unit at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The Hurricane Specialist Unit issues tropical cyclone forecasts and warnings for the Atlantic and eastern North Pacific hurricane basins.

Franklin received his Bachelor of Science degree and Master of Science degree in Meteorology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1980, 1984)

Franklin began his career with NOAA in 1982 in its Hurricane Research Division. During his 17-year tenure in HRD, he made more than 80 hurricane eyewall penetrations aboard the NOAA P-3 Hurricane Hunter aircraft, supporting research into hurricane motion and structure. He developed the software packages used throughout the Nation’s hurricane reconnaissance fleet to examine, process, and transmit Global Positioning System (GPS) dropwindsonde data.

Franklin joined the National Hurricane Center in 1999, serving for ten seasons as a Hurricane Specialist. He was named Hurricane Specialist Unit Branch Chief in January 2009.

Franklin has received more than a dozen awards, including the National Weather Service’s Isaac Cline award, and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Editors Award. He has twice been chosen for the AMS Banner I. Miller award, and twice won the Department of Commerce Gold Medal, for improvements to the accuracy of hurricane analyses through innovative application of GPS dropsonde data, and for leading NOAA’s operational use of the QuikSCAT satellite. He has published more than 20 scientific articles on hurricane motion, inner-core structure, forecasting, and meteorological instrumentation.