CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — In the past, hurricanes could not be tracked as accurately as they can now. Lack of technology left loopholes in the forecasts and people had no idea of the storms coming. Now, not only can we track storms, but we can also see them up close.
While most people try to avoid storms, the hurricane hunters fly headfirst into them.
“It feels like you’re sitting at a car wash for a few hours. Often you can’t see anything because it’s just clouds and heavy rain,” said Lt. Col. Mark Withey, a navigator for the Hurricane Hunters. “At times the hail is pounding on the windows and shaking the plane. It feels like the brush is hitting the side of your car at a car wash.”
And they’re walking through weather like a car wash.
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“We rely on radar to tell us where we’re going and how to get through the eye of the storm safely until we’re in the eye of the storm, at which point forecasters in the back are using their instruments to find the exact center of circulation,” Withey said.
These planes collect important data.
“We can look at satellite imagery and infer the strength of a storm, but we can’t send an aircraft down there and directly into a hurricane until we can measure the winds and air pressure directly,” said Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center. “That’s the real advantage of these platforms: the aircraft can go directly where we want to go. We can sample the size of the storm. The P-3 that we’re standing directly below has a tail Doppler radar on its back that can measure the wind field structure and the precipitation structure.”
The collected data is sent back in real time to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
“Flight altitude data, Doppler radar data, dropsondes deployed by aircraft, and other data are all fed into Earth and hurricane models to improve predictions of hurricane tracks and intensity by 10 to 20 percent,” Brennan said.
That accuracy is key to keeping people safe.
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“We need to get the course right,” Brennan said, “with the right strength, the right structure, we need to get the hazards right, we need to warn people of what they need to prepare for.”
Their next challenge is getting that information to the right people.
“You can have the perfect forecast, but if people don’t act on it, your job isn’t done. We want our forecasts to be as accurate as possible, but we’re in a time where the communication aspect is more important than ever.”
