Scientists explore hurricanes from inside
The 53rd Air Force Reserve Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, known as the Hurricane Hunters has been flying into tropical storms and hurricanes since 1944. This photo is from inside the eyewall. Come see Earth & Sky's Hurricane Hunter Photo Gallery for more.
DB: This is Earth & Sky, with Barry Damiano. In the past 20 years, he’s flown with a crew of specialists through dozens of hurricanes.
JB: They pass through hundreds of kilometers of cloud bands and rain surrounding the eye of the hurricane. About 40 kilometers – 25 miles – from the eye, they reach the eyewall.
Barry 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.
DB: For a couple of minutes, inside the eyewall, the plane experiences violent updrafts and downdrafts.
Barry Damiano: That would be the most exciting portion of the flight. I won’t use the word dangerous, or maybe the portion of the flight where I would be the most concerned. Because once you break through the eyewall, and get into the eye, the turbulence diminishes rapidly. It is calm in the eye. If it’s a daytime flight, you can see the sun shining through. You can see the blue sky above and the ocean surface below. It is fairly spectacular. And 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.
JB: To see photos from inside a hurricane, come to earthsky.org. Our thanks to NOAA – the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth & Sky.
For more from Barry Damiano, read the Earth & Sky interview.
Where can I see photos from inside a hurricane?
Come see Earth & Sky’s Photo Gallery: Eyewitness photos from inside a hurricane.
Does anyone else hunt hurricanes?
This radio segment highlights the work of NOAA Hurricane Hunters, but NOAA isn’t the only organization flying through hurricanes for the public good. The U.S. Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron also gets into the act.
How do hurricanes work?
Read Hurricane Structure, from NOAA. And check out Anatomy of a hurrricane, from the Palm Beah Post.
For a wonderful account of an early hurricane hunting experience by Robert Simpson in 1954, read A Flight Through the Eye of a Hurricane, from Scientific American.
How did the 2005 hurricane season compare to previous years?
Read Climate of 2005: Atlantic Hurricane Season, from NOAA’s Climatic Data Center.
Wouldn’t it be safer just to use satellites to monitor hurricanes?
Scientists use satellites to monitor hurricanes, but sometimes satellites can’t completely see through clouds or rainfall to measure the wind speeds, temperatures and pressures inside. And land based radars can track storms when they’re close to land, but aren’t useful when the storm is more than about 200 miles away. So forecasters want that extra bit of information that can only be gathered by hurricane hunter aircraft.
Thanks to:
Barry Damiano
Flight Director/Meteorologist
NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center
MacDill Air Force Base
Tampa, FL
Additional Teacher Resources
NOAA: In the Eye of a Hurricane…The Firsthand Report of a Former NOAA Hurricane Hunter
Imagine a summer thunderstorm, a dark, malevolent, hulking brute towering over 10 turbulent miles into the heavens, spewing blinding rain, hailstones and lightning. Now, imagine a line of these monsters 75 miles long, standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Take that line and wrap it around into a circle 20-30 miles across, and spin it counterclockwise at 140 miles an hour. That is a hurricane eyewall. Our job is to transit across the hurricane, through the eyewall, into the eye and out the other side. We are the NOAA Hurricane Hunters.
Science Daily: NOAA Hurricane Hunter Pilot Captures Katrina at Her Meanest
NOAA hurricane hunter WP-3D Orion and Gulfstream IV aircraft conducted ten long flights into and around the eye of Hurricane Katrina. Lt. Mike Silah, a P-3 pilot, got to see Hurricane Katrina upclose and personal, especially when she was an extremely dangerous Category Five storm in the Gulf of Mexico. The day before the powerful and destructive storm made landfall on the USA Gulf Coast, Silah snapped a series of images capturing the eyewall of Katrina.
