Hunting Down Hurricanes – It’s a Living!
They say there is a job or career for everyone. Imagine getting a phone call that a hurricane is forming somewhere in the Caribbean Sea or in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida and your job is to put on your gear, load up your plane and fly directly into it. Yep, that’s exactly what I said fly directly into a hurricane.
That’s what the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron does and has been doing since 1944. Better known as the “Hurricane Hunters,” this amazing group of Air Force Reserve squadron members maintain a fleet of 10 Lockheed-Martin WC130J aircraft that they regularly fly into tropical storms and the eye of a hurricane out of the Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Whenever a storm begins brewing, the National Hurricane Center sends out an order for the Hurricane Hunters to investigate the storm by doing reconnaissance. They want to know if the winds are blowing in a counterclockwise rotation which would indicate a closed-system. They Hurricane Hunters are responsible for flying 500-1500 feet above the ocean’s surface and to monitor waves to gauge the direction and wind speed with intent of providing the data necessary for an accurate forecast and to determine the mission of the hurricane hunters.
If it’s determined to be a “fix” mission, the Hurricane Hunters will fly directly into the center of the storm to get more data. They’ll continue until they are low on fuel or they’ve gotten enough data, information, and photos for the National Hurricane Center. If it’s a level three or above hurricane – considered a major storm – they’ll enter it at 10,000 feet and eventually penetrate the eye wall where they’ll drop instruments into the hurricane to determine the maximum winds and lowest pressure as well as temperature and other relevant information.
The main mission of the Hurricane Hunters is to basically patrol hurricanes and to do reconnaissance which is a complex way of saying to figure out what is going on? Although the planes and crew are considered a part of the Department of Defense they are given orders by the Department of Commerce and given marching orders for tropical storms under the National Hurricane Operations Plan. This plan says that the Hurricane Hunters (53rd WRS) will provide 24 hour daily support and be able to fly up to 3 missions per day and able to respond within 16 hours. Their reconnaissance extends from the Caribbean and Atlantic Oceans to the international dateline in the Pacific Ocean.
The crew includes 10 full-time individuals and 10 part-time individuals who work “day” jobs as policemen, janitors, teachers, lawyers and practically anything you can think of. The part-time crew members come to the base a few times a month for training and flying on missions whenever possible. When the planes take off on a mission they will include a five person crew consisting of a pilot, co-pilot, navigator, aerial reconnaissance weather officer (ARWO), and the weather loadmaster.
The value of the Hurricane Hunters as well as their impact on keeping individuals safe from storms is often immeasurable. Their work of flying into storms and gauging the power, speed and force of hurricanes increases the accuracy by 30 percent in terms of the storms actual power. This additional knowledge allows weather officials to better prepare and communicate important and life-saving information to individuals and communities affected by hurricanes and tropical storms.