Irene's Eye Drops

Any Hurricane Hunter will agree that their job entails long hours and lots of eye drops. In fact, a typical hurricane mission lasts 10-12 hours and involves four to five end-to-end trips into the eye of the storm, each time administering eye drops necessary for gathering data needed to more accuractly predict its path. During an afternoon-evening-night-morning visit (did I mention these flights were long) into Hurricane Irene before she made land-fall, Tech. Sgt. Amy Lee served as one of two Dropsonde Operators on board, launching a series of dropsondes out of the bottom of the aircraft via a large tube during each eye penetration.