Lisa Pate, FRSA Executive Director
In mid-May, the Hurricane Hunters were in Orlando for a four-hour expo at the Executive Airport. I wanted to know more about the operations side of how hurricanes are monitored, what type of data is gathered and what is done with that information. I was amazed at all the technology that is involved and I was surprised to discover that there are two types of hurricane hunters that work together to provide valuable scientific information to help communities prepare for weather events, the US Air Force 53rd Weather
Reconnaissance Squadron (WRS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
WRS, a component of the 403rd Wing, stationed out of Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Miss., a one-of-a-kind organization and is the only operational unit in the world flying weather reconnaissance on a routine basis. Their mission is to recruit, organize and train assigned personnel to perform aerial weather reconnaissance. They provide surveillance of tropical storms and hurricanes and also fly winter storm missions off both coasts of the U.S. During hurricanes, military crews fly state-of-the-art WC-130J aircraft directly into the core of tropical cyclones to gather data that are critical for forecasting a hurricane’s intensity and predicting landfall. The data is sent in real time via satellite from the aircraft directly to the National Hurricane Center in Miami for analysis and use by hurricane forecasters. “This data is vital in improving storm track models, which plays a critical role in alerting coastal residents about potential hazards,” said Lt. Col. Kaitlyn Woods, 53rd WRS chief meteorologist.
During the 2016 hurricane season, the 53rd WRS, flew 75 missions, including 12 investigative flights over the Atlantic. They utilize 10 WC-130J Super Hercules aircraft equipped with palletized meteorological data-gather instruments. There is basically an air crew of five (a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, flight meteorologist and weather reconnaissance loadmaster) and also aircrews of 20 and 59 air reserve technicians. The pilot, who serves as the aircraft commander, and the co-pilot man the flight controls. The navigator keeps track of the aircraft’s position and movement and monitors radar to avoid tornadic activity. The flight meteorologist acts as flight director and observes and records meteorological data at flight level using a computer that encodes weather data every 30 seconds. The weather reconnaissance loadmaster collects and records vertical meteorological data using a parachute-borne sensor known as a dropsonde, that measures and encodes weather data down to the ocean surface.
NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage coast and marine resources. Specially equipped NOAA aircraft play an integral role in hurricane forecasting. Data collected during hurricanes by these high-flying meteorological stations help forecasters make accurate predictions during a hurricane and help hurricane researchers achieve a better understanding of storm processes, improving their forecast models. NOAA teams do not fly into the hurricane, but gather data from outside the storm.
NOAA’s two Lockheed WP-3D Orion four-engine turboprop aircraft, affectionately nicknamed "Kermit" and "Miss Piggy,” probe every wind and pressure change, repeating the often grueling experience again and again during the course of an 8-10 hour mission. Scientists aboard the aircraft deploy Global Positioning System (GPS) dropwindsondes as the P-3 flies through the hurricane. These instruments continuously transmit measurements of pressure, humidity, temperature, and wind direction and speed as they fall toward the sea, providing a detailed look at the structure of the storm and its intensity. The P-3s' tail Doppler radar and lower fuselage radar systems, meanwhile, scan the storm vertically and horizontally, giving scientists and forecasters a real-time look at the storm. The P-3s can also deploy probes called bathythermographs that measure the temperature of the sea.
Storm surge forecasts have benefited from the addition of NOAA-developed Stepped Frequency Microwave Radiometers (SFMRs) to
NOAA’s P-3s. SFMRs measure over-ocean wind speed and rain rate in hurricanes and tropical storms, key indicators of potentially deadly storm surges. Surge is a major cause of hurricane-related deaths.
In addition to conducting research to help scientists better understand hurricanes and other kinds of tropical cyclones, NOAA's P-3s participate in storm reconnaissance missions when tasked to do so by the NOAA Hurricane Center. The purpose of these missions is primarily to locate the center of the storm and measure central pressure and surface winds around the eye. Information from both research and reconnaissance flights directly contribute to the safety of people living along and visiting the vulnerable Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
The P-3s are based at NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. AOC is part of NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, which includes civilians as well as officers of the NOAA Corps, one of the nation’s seven uniformed services. NOAA Corps pilots and civilian flight engineers, meteorologists and electronic engineers are highly trained to operate in the kind of adverse weather conditions that keep other aircraft on the ground. Much of the scientific instrumentation flown aboard NOAA
aircraft is designed, built, assembled, and calibrated by AOC’s Science and Engineering Division. During non-hurricane season months, the P-3s and G-IV are tailored by AOC engineers for use in other severe weather and atmospheric research programs, and flown by NOAA Corps pilots worldwide in a variety of weather conditions.
It all started in 1943 as a bar room dare, when two Army Corps pilots challenged each other to fly through a hurricane. On July 27, 1943, Major Joe Duckworth flew a propeller-driven, single-engine North American AT-6 “Texan” trainer into the eye of a hurricane. Major Duckworth flew into the eye of the storm twice that day, once with a navigator and again with a weather officer. These were generally considered to be the first airborne attempts to obtain data for use in plotting the position of a tropical cyclone as it approached land. Duckworth’s pioneering efforts paved the way for further flights into tropical cyclones and the amazing technology that has developed since.
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