Hurricanes can be monstruous, terrifying things to live through. Garrett Black flies through them for a living and likes it.

Last year, for instance, Black flew through Hurricane Matthew, which reached the maximum category five strength, to measure its fury as the storm struck the Caribbean and the southeast US coast.

"It's a lot like a roller coaster ride. It's exciting," Black, a meteorologist, told AFP Friday at a hurricane awareness presentation at an airport near Miami.

The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1 and runs through November 30.

Garrett flies with four other crew members on an Air Force WC-130J, a lumbering gray prop plane affectionately called a Hurricane Hunter.

Flying at 10,000 feet, the team's mission is to measure the strength of a hurricane and which way it is headed, among other things.

"If it's close to the coastline, we'll go through many different times. It gets really bumpy. The turbulence could be anything from 1 to 10," Black added.

"Sometimes it is fine and you really don't feel anything, and sometimes it will bump you around quite a bit."

Part of the team's job is to release in different areas of the hurricane small cylinders known as dropsondes.

Equipped with a small parachute, they fall through the whirling madness of the storm and measure temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, speed and direction of the hurricane.

The gadget has a transmitter to send this data back to the plane, which then passes it on to the National Hurricane Center.

The plane releases the dropsondes as it flies through what is called the eyewall of the hurricane -- the area just outside the eye and the spot where the fiercest winds and rainfall are. It also drops them in the eye itself.

- 'Not too nervous' -

Last year with Hurricane Matthew, winds hit a stunning 270 kilometers per hour (170 mph) although Black's team flew in later when the storm was downgraded somewhat.

"Usually, I'm not too nervous to be honest with you. We train a great amount of time. We are very prepared. We never had an accident during a storm," said Black.

The data that the hurricane hunters planes send can save lives.

"You would think ... we wouldn't need to have planes going into the hurricanes if satellites could do it," said John Cangialoso, a meteorologist with the NHC.

But satellites only give an estimate of a hurricane's strength and render a picture of what it looks like, he added.

"In order to really understand how strong it is, the only way it's actually to get in it and collect data," Cangialoso said.

Tweet

NASA spots Eastern Pacific season's earliest first tropical storm in satellite era
Greenbelt MD (SPX) May 11, 2017
The first tropical storm in the Eastern Pacific Ocean has formed west of Costa Rica as NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP Satellite passed overhead. Tropical Storm Adrian's formation has already made a mark in hurricane history. Although Eastern Pacific hurricane season doesn't start officially until May 15, it's just a marker. We've already seen the first tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean form in e ... read more

Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
When the Earth Quakes
A world of storm and tempest

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The Space Media Network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceMediaNetwork Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceMediaNetwork Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only