Air Force Hurricane Hunters say they're ready for busy hurricane season
The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, also known as the "Hurricane Hunters," is officially ready to roll out for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season.
The 403rd Wing maintenance and support personnel based at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, spent the last week prepositioning aircraft parts, tools and communication systems at the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, in preparation for the season.
"Our area of operation spans from just west of Hawaii to the middle of the Atlantic," said Lt. Col. Jeff Mitchell, 53rd WRS mission commander for the deployment. "Staging at St. Croix puts us closer to where Atlantic hurricanes tend to form, giving us the head start we need when every hour counts."
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The Hurricane Hunters are the only Department of Defense unit that flies into tropical storms and hurricanes, but they're not the only hurricane hunters around.
Here's what to know about hurricane hunters and the important role they play during hurricane season.
Hurricane hunters are pilots and researchers who fly into tropical storms and hurricanes to collect crucial data that forecasters use to make accurate predictions, help researchers better understand storm processes and improve forecast models.
"Satellites are useful, but they can't measure the minimum sea level pressure inside a hurricane, or the structure and wind data we gather by flying directly into the eye," said Mitchell. "That data helps the National Hurricane Center make more accurate forecasts—forecasts that save lives and property."
It probably seems crazy, but yes, hurricane hunters really do fly into storms.
Using different planes, the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane hunters cut through hurricanes to reach the storm's eyewall, which is relatively calm.
Flying through a hurricane sounds exciting and dangerous, but there's a lot of downtime during the 8- to 10-hour flight. Colorado State University grad student Angelie Nieves Jiménez, who flew with the NOAA hurricane hunters in 2023, described the experience as thrilling, memorable and bumpy.
"The bumpiness of the flight depends on the storm's strength and the reconnaissance mission path," she said. "Seat belts must be worn at all times when approaching the storm, because there can be updrafts and downdrafts that feel like a roller coaster."
53rd WRS chief aerial reconnaissance weather officer Lt. Col. Ryan Rickert focuses on the mission.
"People often ask us what it's like to fly into a hurricane," said Rickert. "It's intense—but we know that every pass through the storm means better data for the National Hurricane Center forecasters and better warning for people in harm's way."
Hurricane hunters will typically fly through the eyewall of the hurricane multiple times, dropping weather instruments called dropsondes to measure temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, and barometric pressure from the aircraft to the ocean surface.
All of this data is transmitted to the National Hurricane Center in real-time, which is then plugged into computer models to try and predict the storm's track and intensity. The data is important as it helps government officials and emergency managers to make decisions about evacuations and other storm preparations.
53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron currently has 10 WC-130J "Super Hercules" aircraft, very similar to the Blue Angels' "Fat Albert" maintenance aircraft. This version of the Hercules is outfitted with palletized meteorological data-gathering instruments.
NOAA's hurricane hunters fly two Lockheed JP-3D Orion four-engine turboprop aircraft into storms. The aircraft are nicknamed "Kermit" (N42RF) and "Miss Piggy" (N43RF).
NOAA pilots also fly the Gulfstream IV-SP (G-IV) above and around storms. This plane has a cruising altitude of 45,000 feet and a range of 4,000 nautical miles, making it perfect to get a detailed view of weather systems in the upper atmosphere around a hurricane.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Air Force Hurricane Hunters are ready for 2025 hurricane season
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