Hurricane Hunters track winter storm

Published Jan. 15, 2016
By Staff Sgt. Nicholas Monteleone
403rd Wing Public Affairs

KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Mississippi -- A crew from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Hurricane Hunters, flew a mission from here Thursday to investigate a low pressure system in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to the National Hurricane Center website, this system may have turned into a nor'easter during the weekend.

Nor'easters are areas of low pressure that rapidly move up the East Coast and have an impact on the New England states, especially, bringing strong wind and lots of snow said Lt. Col. Brian Schroeder, a 53rd WRS aerial reconnaissance weather officer.
Flying these storms is different than flying a normal tropical system.

"With winter storms we fly at a constant altitude just as high as we can go, and we're going to drop dropsondes all along the path of the storm," he said. "The dropsondes will fall to the surface to gather data to be sent to the (National) Hurricane Center where it will go into models produced by the National Center for Environmental Prediction."

There was a possibility of flying a second mission today but it was cancelled as the storm was no longer a threat to the North East.