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High-tech hurricane hunters vital for forecasters

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By LEIGH SPANN

lspann@wfla.com

Published: July 22, 2009

TAMPA - Take an airplane built 33 years ago, pack it with costly experimental instruments then fly it a mile above the ocean through one of nature's most fearsome creations.

Not many of us would view that as sane.

But that's what the hurricane hunters do because the information they bring back is impossible to get any other way.

"I say the hurricane hunters have to have nine lives," says Jim McFadden, who manages the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane hunter aircraft at MacDill Air Force Base.

When it isn't hurricane season, two P-3 Orion aircraft are used for other NOAA research projects.

But between June 1 and Nov. 30, they take on the additional mission of hurricane research and reconnaissance.

The work of hurricane hunters starts before the storms form. "We're looking at genesis of storms, pre-hurricane, pre-tropical storms," McFadden says.

Once the hurricane develops, the tracking begins as the planes fly through storms, not once, but several times. Doppler radar mounted at the tail of the aircraft gathers data about the storm's wind with each pass.

With the radar readings, forecasters get a profile of the hurricane's winds from the ocean surface to the top of the storms.

The information is fed via satellite to the forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

"They can incorporate that information into the models and improve the track and intensity forecast," McFadden says.

The five-day forecast of the storm is based on information sent from these hurricane hunters.

Data is also harvested through a dropsonde, a $700 instrument-packed cylinder released from the plane. A parachute slows the dropsonde's fall through the storm as it gathers temperature, humidity and air pressure readings. A GPS device tracks its position, giving forecasters more information about wind direction and speed.

Data is sent back to the airplane twice a second, and it usually takes the dropsonde about four minutes to reach the surface of the water.

"This is a very valuable tool. It's done great service to improving hurricane track forecasts by as much as 25, 30 percent," McFadden says

The plane was built in 1976, and it has not been structurally enhanced, even though aircraft are not designed to fly through the turbulence of a hurricane where winds push from all directions.

During hurricane season, the U.S. Air Force 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, based in Biloxi, Miss., handles many of the flights.

But the NOAA aircraft are different than the Air Force Reserve squadron, says NOAA Commander Al Grimonte, pilot of a NOAA plane.

"A lot of stuff on this airplane is one of a kind, in developmental stages. A lot of the stuff that we develop in this aircraft will move over to the Air Force side."

Instead of getting the basics of wind speed and location of the storm, the NOAA hurricane hunters also look at the big picture, combining a reconnaissance mission with research. "Why is it like this? Is it different than any other storm? Is it going to tell us what the next storm is going to do?" Girimonte says.

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