Hurricane Hunter Aircraft flying into Hurricane Dorian

As many of you know, Hurricane Dorian is gaining strength off of the coast of the United States. My purpose today is to write about the hurricane hunter aircraft flying into Hurricane Dorian, but first a few preliminaries. The image below is from the National Hurricane Center's web page, under the section for Hurricane Dorian. The National Hurricane Center (go here for their Facebook Page) is a good source of information about Hurricanes, but they do not provide location specific information. If you or a loved one lives in or near an area within striking distance of hurricane, you may go to the National Weather Service where you will see a map  of the United states, click on the area you are interested in. You will then be taken to the local National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office for your region (and check their social media accounts as well), and you will be able to get location specific hurricane advisories, watches and warnings.

Hurricane hunter aircraft may be from NOAA, see the NOAA Hurricane Hunter Facebook Page or from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the 403rd Wing (Air Force Reserve). The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron has a nice facebook page: U.S. Air Force Reserve 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron Hurricane Hunters. These hurricane hunters fly into hurricanes including multiple flights into the eye to provide crucial data that is then used by weather forecasting models, including those from the National Hurricane Center, for hurricane forecasts issued by the National Hurricane Center.

If you want to know about current and upcoming missions of either the NOAA or the 53rd Squadron's hurricane hunters, go to the webpage for aerial reconnaissance in the North Atlantic Basin, you will find information about reconnaissance mapping on that webpage (Google Earth requires downloading a KMZ file and Cesium does not appear to work in Firefox).

I was thrilled to see that the NOAA Hurricane Hunters has an all female  three-pilot flight crew. This all female crew flies the Gulfstrean IV-SP, NOAA 49 "Gonzo" : Capt. Kristie Twining, Cmdr. Rebecca Waddington, and Lt. Lindsey Norman.

Here are some short videos shared by the NOAA Hurricane Hunters on their Facebook page:

• NOAA 42, aka Kermit (P3 Orion) taking off from NOAA's aircraft operations center early in the morning of August 29th for a reconnaissance mission into Dorian. Go here to see more information on NOAA's two P3 Orion Hurricane Hunter aircraft 
• NOAA 42 landing later on August 29th after completing a reconnaissance mission into Dorian.
• NOAA 42 while flying in Dorian's eye while on a reconnaissance mission into earlier on August 30th.

Here some nice Facebook posts from the U.S. Air Force Reserve 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron:

• August 27th news article about three WC-103J's and one C-130J Super Hercules ready to fly into Dorian
• Behind the scene planning and coordination for upcoming flights into Dorian (August 28th, photo only).
• Photos from an August 27th mission into Dorian
• Photos of buoys dropped by the 53rd's hurricane hunters (August 30th). These buoys will measure the temperature of the ocean surface, surface winds, and surface pressure.

I close by sharing two videos where you may learn a little more about what the hurricane hunters do.

In the first video from ABC Action News (serving Polk County Florida and environs) you will see one of NOAA's hurricane hunters taking off on a mission. This video was uploaded on August 29th.

Direct link to video from ABC Action News

The second video (just over four minutes) is from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with highlights of a hurricane hunter from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron flight, uploaded in April 2019. The video appears to be taken on a flight into Hurricane Florence in September 2018.

Direct link to video