'Hurricane Hunters' land after mission through Earl

Newsday takes you into the eye of the storm

Newsday reporter Jennifer Smith and videographer Sally Morrow were aboard a military plane Friday heading into the heart of Hurricane Earl as it tracks north off the mid-Atlantic. Known as “Hurricane Hunters,” members of the Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron collect data on the storm, expected to pass Friday. (To read Smith's tweets and recap the mission, click here or read below.)Long Island

Ten thousand feet above the Atlantic on Friday morning, the ride through the eye of Hurricane Earl seemed, well, preposterously smooth for a storm that earlier this week was apparently bent on blowing down power lines from North Carolina to Cape Cod.

“Not as strong as he wants to be,” said Lt. Col. Roy Deatherage, the meteorologist on Friday’s mission by the Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, after the aircraft’s first pass through the eye just before 9 a.m. “Earl’s getting a little puny,” he said.

Tell that to any East End resident who ends up spending Friday night without power, or with a driveway blocked by a downed tree.

Still, there was no getting around it. The real-time weather conditions measured by the crew’s specially outfitted military plane told the story of a storm whose tires had blown out somewhere in the mid-Atlantic.

Known as the Hurricane Hunters, the squadron’s 20 aircrews head straight for the maelstroms that coastal residents fear. Their mission: gathering key storm data that National Hurricane Center in Miami turns into forecasts that local emergency managers rely on to make critical decisions in the 48 to 36 hours before a large storm hits. This run — the 16th air reconnaissance mission since Earl started brewing more than a week ago — caught the hurricane as a Category 2 storm some 120 nautical miles off Norfolk, VA.

While still likely to inflict its share of wind, rain and flooding, Hurricane Earl by this point was pretty small potatoes by this flight crew’s standards.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give this maybe a 2,” said Lt. Col. Doug Fairtrace, navigator to the six-person crew.

Still, there was a lot to do. The crew took off in the dark at 5:45 a.m. New York time from Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi. By 7:15 blue skies were visible through the small windows in the cargo section of the plane, a modified Hercules aircraft whose non-weather data-gathering cousin the Air Force uses to drop troops and supplies into hostile territory.

As it flies, Weatherbird computer software monitors atmospheric conditions near the plane and transmits the data to monitoring stations on the ground. Data is sampled six times per second, formulated into 10-second average data sets and then crunched into higher-level meteorological parameters such as pressure, altitude and dew point. Those observations are automatically sent to the National Hurricane Center.

Other information is gathered through parachute-borne sensors called dropsondes, 2.5 pound instruments resembling poster tubes are launched from the aircraft in the eye of the hurricane and in the areas of the storm where weather is rougher — in this case, the northeast and northwest quadrants.

The chute slows the dropsonde’s descent so it falls about 2,500 feet per minute. It sends measurements back to the aircraft every .05 seconds. After the drops, the weather loadmaster analyzes and edits the information, formatting it to a standard code that is then sent to the ground via satellite.

“You release one in the center and typically in the stronger wind bands you’ll kick one out,” said Deatherage, in the midst of his 222nd hurricane mission in 22 years.

As ominous as Earl may have seemed earlier this week, it was nothing compared to what Deatherage said was his worst mission: flying in 2005 into Hurricane Wilma when it was a Category 5 storm.

Still, turbulence on the plane does not necessarily correspond to the strength of a storm. In fact, some flights through Category 4 or 5 hurricanes can be more serene than passage through a smaller but more vertically bumptious storm, flight commander Capt. Byron Hudgins said. He pointed to the roiling Atlantic below, gray waves capped with furious froth.

Postflight

Smith just landed, sending her first tweet on land shortly before 4:30 p.m. She explained on her Twitter posting - which you can follow here - why there was such a delay between her tweets:

While traveling through Earl, Smith noted that it didn't feel like the crew was flying in a hurricane:

The plane also made several trips through the eye of the hurricane:

Throughout the trip, Smith managed to snap plenty of photos, though most were inside the cockpit due to the lack of windows:

To see other images from the flight, click here. To read more of Smith's Twitter feed, click here.

On board

After 3:05 a.m.

It's very much a "Battlestar Galactica" feel on board, with lots of mysterious looking dials inside this bird. Scientific equipment is strapped to floor. The crew had to switch planes because of some unanticipated issues, but soon after, we strapped in and gunned down the runway. After takeoff, jets blew misty-looking air into the cabin and the temperature quickly cooled.

Preflight

1:25 a.m. Central Time

A sliver of moon hung over Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss., as Lt. Col. Roy Deatherage prepared for his early Friday mission to the heart of Hurricane Earl.

"Our goal today is to fly and actually penetrate Hurricane Earl, and determine where it is, how strong it is, how far from the center the hurricane force winds extend," Deatherage said. "And of course the whole deal is to provide the status to the Hurricane Center so they can update their computer models and their forecast."

Known as Hurricane Hunters, the Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron performs aerial weather surveillance of tropical storms and hurricanes for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The crews use sophisticated computer software and parachute-borne sensors that measure air pressure, humidity, temperature and wind speed and direction before they hit the ocean tens of thousands of feet below.

The crew for Friday's mission included pilots, co-pilot and a navigator, as well as a flight meteorologist and a weather reconnaissance loadmaster. This would be the 16th weather reconnaissance mission flown since Earl starting brewing more than a week ago.

First, the preflight call to the Hurricane Center.

"Good morning, Steve, Roy Deatherage here," he said from his office in the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron's building. "Ready for you to tell me what we're going to be doing tonight."

"You are going to be Mission Earl, and your storm ID is going to be Alpha Foxtrot 303 1607 Alpha Earl," the Hurricane Center replied.

The hurricane has weakened some, downshifting to a Category 2 storm. The plan is a 12-hour flight, with five hours spent at Earl's center.

"We'll get out there pretty high, and then we'll be about 10,000 feet in the storm," Deatherage said. "Descend down about 150 miles before we get to the center . . . and then we do what's called an Alpha pattern, which is kind of like an X, with 105 mile-legs on each side of the center. And we'll be in the center four times during this flight."

Then it was out to the tarmac, where the crew was checking the plane, a WC-130J Hercules aircraft. The $48.5 million plane runs on four Rolls-Royce turboprop engines and can stay aloft for nearly 18 hours.

A typical mission lasts 11 hours and covers nearly 3,500 miles - this one will travel to the mid-Atlantic to catch up with Earl, then spend several hours gathering data at the eye of the storm before heading back home to Mississippi. This mission ended up taking off after 4 a.m. and heading for the storm system. 

 Newsday.com staff contributed to this story.