Washington: When Hurricane Sally hit the coast of Florida in 2020, US pilot Dean Legidakes was in a scientific plane flying directly into the center of the storm.
Back on land, he learns how disaster came to earth.
“Our house is falling apart,” his mother said on the phone from her devastated state.
Helping improve forecasts of these devastating storms is personal for “storm hunters” employed by the US government.
Each year, two NOAA turboprop WP-3D Orion aircraft fly over the North Atlantic to refine meteorologists’ live forecasts of the path and intensity of storms threatening to land.
High-tech meteorological tools may be even more important in 2024, as the hurricane season – from early June to late November – is predicted to be “extraordinary” with seven storms in the United States. 3 or higher is expected.
While most aviators avoid the clutter, NOAA pilots fly right into it.
Legidakes, who served in the US Navy, admits he gets nervous every time he enters a “dangerous environment”.
“But ‘if you’re not happy … you shouldn’t do it,'” he said.
His brother, Kevin Doremus, 36, counted about 140 through the eye and eye of the storm in six years as a storm chaser.
How does it reflect taste?
“It’s like riding an old wooden roller coaster at a car wash,” Doremus said.
“Your stomach rises a little, then you touch and sink into your seat,” he says. “It’s a lot, but sometimes it’s eight hours.”
Updates and consumables, he said, stood at the entrance to the cockpit covered with equipment.
The seats in the military-style cabin are equipped with airbags. Several screens display streams of data collected by various aircraft radars and other high-tech equipment.
Each mission lasts 8-10 hours and involves a team of dozens of people: pilots, engineers, flight directors and scientists.
There are bugs on the plane, but “it’s hard to sleep in a storm,” Doremus admits.
Sometimes planes fly in circles in the eye of a storm where the wind is calm.
“We all think we’re doing science,” he said. “We actually let everyone stand up and use the bathroom.”
‘Hurricane hunters:’ calm science pilots in eye of storm
