2018 Hurricane Season - an early start

Past readers of this blog know that I am interested in other uses of aircraft used in non-military reconnaissance missions, especially including but not limited to the aircraft operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). I am especially interested in NOAA's Hurricane Hunter Aircraft. I'll get to these aircraft in a minute.

While today, June 1st, is the official start of the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season, I expect that many of you know that we got an early start to the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season with Tropical Storm Alberto that came ashore in the Florida Panhandle earlier this week, see this graphic from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) to see Alberto's path. The last public advisory for Alberto from the NHC was issued on Tuesday, May 29th and may be found here. For those so inclined you can find a listing of all Alberto advisories issued by the NHC on this NHC web page. The National Hurricane Center has a good website with links to a variety of information about hurricanes including a map on their main page. You may switch between Atlantic and Eastern North Pacific to get a different map.

Many of you know that NOAA's Hurricane Hunters as well as the C130 Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron "Hurricane Hunters" fly into hurricanes to collect data. You may go this link from NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations to learn more about NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft. As I write this, there are four youtube videos on that page: NOAA Ocean Today on Hurricane Hunters, Views from Hermine, Hurricane Hunter in flight, and how the dropsonde is used.

If you are interested in tracking the Hurricane Hunters (NOAA's and those flown by the 53rd Weather Reconn Squadron) in real time, you may go this live recon page from tropicalatlantic dot com. Finally the NHC has an aircraft reconnaissance page that may be found here, where you will see the reconn reports from each flight, and they include a link where you may learn how to read the reports.

I do want to introduce you to NOAA's  Hurricane Hunter Aircraft before you go and read more about the Hurricane Hunters. Here is a short video from USA Today shot in May 2017 where you will meet the Hurricane Hunter Aircraft up and close and personal. I'll write more about the C-130s flown by the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron "Hurricane Hunters" in my next post.


Direct link to video from USA Today on Youtube