Hurricane Hunters Don't Like Ike

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. James B. Pritchett
  • 403rd Wing Public Affairs
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. --  Data provided by the Air Force Reserve's Hurricane Hunters led forecasters at the National Hurricane Center to increase the intensity of Hurricane Ike this afternoon.

Citizen Airmen of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, charged with flying directly into the eye of nature's most powerful storms, detected surface-level winds of 135 mph and flight-level winds approaching 150 mph. This latest update designates Ike as a strong Category 4 hurricane on the Safir-Simpson Scale. Additional strengthening is expected in the next 36 hours before the hurricane reaches Cuba.

Currently flying missions from a forward operating location in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, the unit remains busy this season with Hurricane Ike the fifth named hurricane and ninth named storm.

The Hurricane Hunters have had no reprieve from storm missions, flying non-stop, 24-hours-a-day since Gustav, which threatened the home of the Hurricane Hunters, the 403rd Wing at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss. National Hurricane Center predictions for Hurricane Ike may follow a similar path once it  reaches the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Anytime a tropical system threatens the U.S. coastline or those of our interests in the Atlantic, Pacific and Caribbean basin, the Hurricane Hunters fly around-the-clock missions. Tasked by the National Hurricane Center, the Hurricane Hunters have flown many missions already; pinpointing the location of the center of these storms and providing real-time data to forecasters via satellite communication. 

Information relayed to the NHC helps forecasters to narrow warning areas by more than 30 percent. With increased accuracy in the forecast, the likelihood that people in those areas will heed watches and warnings also improves. More than 2 million people evacuated New Orleans and surrounding areas ahead of Hurricane Gustav.

This year, all 10 state-of-the-art WC-130J aircraft are equipped with the Stepped-Frequency Microwave Radiometer which allows Reservists on board to constantly measure surface winds directly below the aircraft. The SFMR, affectionately known as the "Smurf," can also determine rainfall rates within a storm system. This, in addition to wind speeds at flight level provides structural detail of the storm.

Already this season, the Smurf has given forecasters significantly more data to feed into their models and provided more accurate surface-level wind data not always available in the past. Readings from the Smurf gave forecasters the information they needed to increase the intensity of Hurricane Ike.