Hurricane Hunters support transitioning U.S. Navy research program

The U.S. Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron released an Airborne Expendable BathyThermographs into the Gulf of Mexico Aug. 2, 2023. An AXBT is expendable instrument that measures the profile of temperature in the water column. The 53rd WRS has been working with the U.S. Naval Academy and Woods Hole Oceanography Institute as part of the Training and Research in Oceanic and Atmospheric Processes in Tropical Cyclones, or TROPIC program to study the ocean and how it reacts with tropical weather systems. (U.S. Air Force photo by Lt. Col. Mark Withee)