Back to Tropical Cyclone
Observation Page | Back
to Main FAQ Page
Subject: H2) Who are the "Hurricane Hunters" and
what are they looking for?
Contributed by Neal Dorst
In the Atlantic basin (Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and
Caribbean Sea) and in the eastern and central Pacific, as required,
hurricane reconnaissance is carried out by two government agencies
The U.S. Navy
stopped flying hurricanes in 1974.
USAF
The 53rd WRS is based at Keesler AFB in Mississippi and maintains
a fleet of ten
WC-130 planes. These cargo airframes have been modified to
carry weather instruments to measure wind, pressure,
temperature and dew point as well as drop instrumented sondes
and make other observations.
NOAA
AOC is presently based at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida and among
its fleet of planes has two
P-3 Orions, originally made as Navy sub hunters, but
modified to include three radars as well as a suite of meteorological
instruments and dropsonde capability. Starting in 1996 AOC
added to its fleet a
Gulfstream IV jet that is able to make hurricane
observations from much higher altitudes (up to 45,000 feet).
It is used primarily to drop sondes around the hurricane's
environment to measure synoptic-scale parameters in the
usually data-free oceanic areas.
The USAF planes are the workhorses of the hurricane hunting effort.
They are often deployed to a forward base, such as Antigua, and
carry out most of the reconnaissance of developing waves and
depressions. Their mission in these situations is to look for
signs of a closed circulation and any strengthening or
organizing that the storm might be showing. This information is
relayed by satellite to the
OAR for the hurricane specialists to
evaluate.
The NOAA planes are more highly instrumented and are generally
reserved for when developed hurricanes are threatening
landfall, especially on U.S. territory. They are also used to
conduct scientific research
on storms.
The planes carry between six to fifteen people, both the flight
crew and the meteorologists. Flight crews consist of a pilot,
co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator, and electrical technicians.
The weather crew might consist of a flight meteorologist, lead
project scientist, cloud physicist, radar specialist, and
dropsonde operators.
The primary purpose of reconnaissance is to track the center
of circulation, these are the co-ordinates that the National Hurricane
Center issues, and to measure the maximum winds. But the crews are
also evaluating the storm's size, structure, and development and this
information is also relayed to NHC via radio and satellite link.
Most of this data, which is critical in determining the
hurricane's threat, cannot be obtained from satellite.
Back to Tropical Cyclone
Observation Page | Back
to Main FAQ Page
|