No two storms are alike, so when we first go into a storm,
we don't even know what we're going to expect.
We're out there 8-10 hours.
My stress level in a flight is typically high, and I can say that's probably a good thing,
'cause it keeps me sharp and on my toes.
But you pretty much hang on and trust your judgment and trust the judgment of the pilots,
and hope for the best.
This work is important for me because I believe it's a crucial help to the American people
in warning them on whether the storm is going to impact their lives and property.
I started working for NOAA in 2007, and two years later, in 2009, I started flying into hurricanes.
Hurricane hunters fly in and around the hurricane or tropical storm environment
to gather critical information that helps predict where the storm is going,
and what the intensity is going to be.
The first storm I flew into was just east of the East Coast of the U.S.
Seeing the actual eyewall on the radar and knowing that we were going to go inside the center was…
it was awesome.
You get to look out the window and see these thunderstorms right outside your window as
you're flying close to them and through them.
So this is where I sit as a Flight Director.
We have several monitors that we keep an eye on.
Up front, we have the pilots that sit in the left seat and the right seat,
and we have a flight engineer here that sits in the middle.
We have our lead scientist typically sit in this seat, where they have a good view
out the window, and they have some monitors to look at the data.
And if we go a little further back, we have here to the left is where the navigator sits.
They make the radio calls, they determine our flight path and call in for our locations.
Back here is the galley.
We have the restroom, the food, the kitchen - most important part.
We have a cooler back here to put our food, and a microwave, and coffee,
and that's about it.
We're notified when to fly by the National Hurricane Center, or by the Hurricane Research Division,
typically 24 hours in advance.
I need to look at several things to do a briefing for the entire crew to keep the airplane safe.
We need to find out whether the storm is predicted to be a rapid intensifier.
We're looking for any tornadoes, and other critical items
about the structure of the storm that could pose a threat.
If there's any concerns about our mission, we may choose another plan.
As a flight director we are in charge of the mission, and we direct the plane
in and around the storm to get to the locations where we need to gather that critical data.
One of the biggest challenges, but also most fun for me, is hunting for the center of the storm,
and that's where the wind speed is zero.
It's actually kind of more like an art, to not make too many turns
but fly over that exact center spot.
Once I find the center of the storm, we mark it.
The navigator marks the latitude and longitude;
we also collect the highest wind speeds of the storm, which is typically in the eyewall,
on our way in or out of the center.
This station to the left is our dropsonde operator.
They're listening for me to call when to release a dropsonde or a buoy, and they use these
two tubes right here, and they flip this switch right here,
and the bottom lever opens up, and the pressure differential
between the outside air and the inside of the airplane pretty much sucks the dropsonde
out of the tube and out into the atmosphere.
Once they're released, a little parachute is connected to it.
It goes up, out into the air to keep the dropsonde stable as it falls through the atmosphere,
collecting wind speed and wind direction and fall rate all the way down, until it hits
the ocean's surface.
We have a person from the Hurricane Research Division sitting here and processing those
dropsondes that fall into the water.
They gather the data, process it, package it up, and send it off the airplane.
They use that information to make their official Hurricane Center forecast, which is what all
the news stations and everyone grabs to find out what's going on with the storm.
Growing up, I used to always ask the question, “why?" about everything.
And there's always more questions.
We'll never understand fully how these things develop.
The lure of studying hurricanes for me is just being completely fascinated with how these storms develop,
and I wanted to actually take a firsthand look and see for myself.
In this next episode, a wildlife biologist has the tense job of tracking grizzly bears.
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