Hurricane Hunters Fly Year's First Storm Mission

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  • By Public Affairs staff
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  The 2007 hurricane season is off to an early start as the Hurricane Hunters flew a disturbance off the coast of Georgia Wednesday morning, eerily reminiscent to the start of the 2005 hurricane season.

The record-breaking 2005 season started with Tropical Storm Adrian on May 20. The data collected by the Hurricane Hunters Wednesday resulted in the National Hurricane Center naming the disturbance, Subtropical Storm Andrea.

The Hurricane Hunters recorded Andrea's minimum central pressure at 29.62 inches, moving west at 3 mph, with sustained winds at 45 mph extending outward up to 115 miles. The NHC does not expect the storm to move much within the next 24 hours. Another reconnaissance mission is scheduled for tomorrow morning and the unit will continue rotating aircraft through the storm until it is no longer a threat.

This year, the state-of-the-art WC-130J aircraft will be equipped with the Stepped-Frequency Microwave Radiometer which allows the Citizen Airman of the Hurricane Hunters to constantly measure surface winds directly below the aircraft. The SFMR can also determine rainfall rates within a storm system. This, in addition to wind speeds at flight level provides structural detail of the storm.

"The SFMR will be the biggest advance I can think of to improve hurricane intensity forecasts," said Max Mayfield, former director of the NHC.

The data collected by the Hurricane Hunters increase the accuracy of the NHC forecast by 30 percent, a rate which will undoubtedly increase with the use of the SFMR. This data enables NHC to more accurately predict the path of storms in order to save lives and narrow areas of evacuation, according to NHC forecasters.

Two Hurricane Hunter aircraft will be equipped with the SFMR by the end of June with one added each month until all 10 WC-130J aircraft are outfitted with the SFMR pod.