Hurricane hunters risk their lives to save others
Barry Damiano takes us into the eye of the storm.
In 2005, hurricanes striking the U.S. did over $100 billion in damage and killed more than 1,300 people. The storms might have been more devastating without accurate forecasts that helped people evacuate. Those forecasts are based, in part, on weather data collected from inside the storms by hurricane hunters, like Barry Damiano. Since 1986, he’s been a NOAA meteorologist and flight director for hurricane hunter aircraft.
Earth & Sky’s Marc Airhart spoke with Barry Damiano in December, 2005.
Airhart: What’s it like to fly into a hurricane?
Damiano: As we’re flying along, we pass through some outer storm bands. These are the spiral arms that surround the eye of the hurricane. They may be very narrow bands, maybe roughly 5 to 10 miles in diameter. We’ll pass through them. We might get some decent bumps. We’re strapped in when we approach these types of weather systems.
As we approach the eyewall of a hurricane, anyone who was standing up will be asked to take their seat, everything on board is secured so nothing will come flying about if we have an extraordinary updraft or downdraft. I will be talking to the pilots and the navigator, directing them on which path to take into the storm.
We aren’t fighting the wind, we basically have the wind coming in at a 90 degree angle to the left side of the airplane. And we’re using that wind to track us into the center of the storm.
Airhart: What is the eyewall?
Damiano: The eyewall is the area of very, very strong thunderstorms that surrounds the eye or the calm center of the hurricane and this is where most of your damage occurs when a storm makes landfall. The eyewall is approximately 15 to 20 miles in diameter and is usually about 25 to 30 miles from the center of the storm.
Airhart: And when you fly through the eyewall, you get knocked around?
Damiano: Yes, you experience a number of updrafts and downdrafts, depending on the intensity of the storm. If it’s a category 4 or 5 you can experience significant updrafts and downdrafts. The plane is traveling at roughly 250 miles per hour, so we try to get in and out of these as quickly as possible.
Airhart: How long does it take to go through the eyewall? And is that the most dangerous part of the flight?
Damiano: Approximately two minutes. That would be the most exciting portion of the flight. I won’t use the word dangerous. It’s the portion of the flight where I would be the most concerned.
Once you break through the eyewall, and get into the eye, the turbulence diminishes rapidly. It’s calm in the eye. If it’s a daytime flight, you can see the sun shining through, if it’s a very strong eye like we had this past year with Katrina and Rita and Wilma. You can see the blue sky above and the ocean surface below.
Airhart: The view inside the eye sounds really beautiful.
Damiano: It is fairly spectacular.
Even at night, in some of the stronger storms, you could have a full moon, you could have the moonshine reflecting off the inner eyewall of the storm. Again, depending on the strength of the storm, if it’s a very strong category 4 or 5 hurricane, it will be very clear right there at the center of the storm looking up. And you will see stars.
Airhart: So what’s your job on these flights?
Damiano: I’m a flight director.
Before a flight, I sit down with the research scientists who have a plan for what they want to accomplish for that day’s mission. The pilots, navigator, scientists and I will go over the plan, make sure we’ll have enough fuel onboard and check that there aren’t any restrictions on the area we’re flying into.
During the flight, my job is to make sure we follow those objectives throughout the flight. But I’m also looking at the safety of the aircraft, so looking at radar we have onboard the aircraft, along with other weather info that’s available to us – such as air temperature, wind speed, pressure – and other products we can now get from the internet. If it’s determined we’re heading into an area that’s going to put the aircraft into jeopardy, I’ll advise the pilots to go around a particular ?piece of weather? and then we’ll get back on course.
Airhart: How do you measure the conditions in and around a hurricane?
Damiano: In some missions, we don’t actually fly into the storms. Instead, we measure conditions around the storm.
We deploy what are called GPS dropsondes. They’re small devices that deploys parachutes once they’re launched from the aircraft and as they fall, they’re measuring wind speed, wind direction, pressure, temperature and humidity. So they provide the weather forecasters a vertical profile of the atmosphere.
Having these dropsondes in the environment surrounding the storm provides data to the forecasters where normally there wouldn’t be any data available and this helps the computer models issue a better forecast in determining where the storm is going to go and whether or not there’s going to be any significant changes in intensity.
Now in missions where we fly into the hurricane, we will deploy a number of dropsondes in the eyewall to give us an idea of what the wind speeds are close to the ocean surface. We have other instruments onboard the aircraft that will attempt to measure the wind speed at the ocean surface based on the state of the sea, based on the amount of foam that’s being whipped up by the winds.
That’s a technology that we’ve been testing out – it’s not ready for prime time – but we’ve been testing it for a few years. It uses microwave radiation beamed down to the surface. Based on the foaming of the ocean surface, scientists can try to gauge what the wind speed is – not necessarily the direction. And these devices are prototypes that will be used by satellites in the next 5 or 10 years.
Airhart: Why do you do this work?
Damiano: You’re going out, you’re facing Mother Nature up close, there’s an awful lot to be learned out there. You’re not sitting at a desk.
I think 50 percent of my time is spent inside the airplane flying to all these exotic locations around the world, meeting all different types of people, flying all different types of weather. It’s so much better than just sitting down and reading a book or going over data.
Especially for hurricanes, you’re at the focus of providing data to somebody – because a lot of people are depending on us being out there gathering information and transmitting it back to the National Hurricane Center as soon as possible for them to make their forecast.
It’s definitely not for the money.
Born and raised in Miami, hurricanes were all I knew about for many, many years. And there is some excitement to it. But there’s also a fulfilling challenge that you’re going out there, you’re providing information to people which may eventually save lives.
Airhart: Thank you for speaking with me today, Mr. Damiano.
Come see Earth & Sky’s Photo Gallery: Eyewitness photos from inside a hurricane.
