KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- As millions of Americans evacuated their homes and headed to safer ground ahead of Hurricanes Helene and Milton this fall, the brave Reserve Airmen of the 403rd Wing’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi, flew multiple missions directly into the deadly storms, collecting data for National Hurricane Center forecasts.
Between Sept. 23 and 26, the Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter aircrews flew nine weather reconnaissance missions into Hurricane Helene, which made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend before wreaking havoc across the Southeastern United States. Between Oct. 5 and 9, the Hurricane Hunters flew nine missions into Hurricane Milton, which made landfall near Siesta Key on Oct. 10 and carved a large path of destruction across the central Florida peninsula.
Weather forecasters rely on satellites for information; however, oceans are data-sparse environments, and satellites can’t provide information such as the minimum sea level pressure of a hurricane, wind speed information or information about the storm structure, which is needed to predict hurricane development and movement, said Lt. Col. Ryan Rickert, 53rd WRS aerial reconnaissance weather officer, who flew a Hurricane Helene mission Sept. 26 directing the crew to the true center of the storm.
During a tropical storm or hurricane, 53rd WRS aircrews fly into these systems with the WC-130J Super Hercules aircraft at altitudes that range from 500 to 1,500 feet for low-level investigations and up to 10,000 feet for fix missions. In the initial stages of a storm, 53rd WRS crews will typically fly about every 12 hours, and as it approaches land, they will start to fly every six hours, said Rickert, adding that during a fix mission, they can fly through the eye of a storm four to six times, and during each pass through the eye they release a dropsonde, which collects temperature, wind speed, wind direction, humidity and barometric pressure data. The aircraft also collects surface wind speed and flight-level data. This information is transmitted to the NHC to assist them with their storm warnings and hurricane forecast models in the Atlantic, Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
Another mission they fly is a survey mission, which allows forecasters to investigate areas of interest within a weather system.
Capt. Amaryllis Cotto, 53rd WRS ARWO, flew such a mission at 10,000 feet into Helene Sept. 23 before the storm was named.
“A survey mission is a non-standardized flying pattern for the purpose of investigating certain regions of a system, before it’s well developed,” said Cotto. “The data collected in the survey mission gives NHC forecasters a better understanding of how the system is behaving and its interaction with the surrounding environment.
“The dropsonde data is also ingested in the models, which produces a better forecast track and intensity output,” she said. “The data we provide is very valuable.”
Each mission has a purpose, whether it’s a survey, invest or fix mission and every single one of them improves the track and intensity forecast by 20-30%.
The 53rd WRS, the only Department of Defense organization still flying into tropical storms and hurricanes, has been collecting this vital weather data for forecasts since 1944. The squadron’s operations area ranges from the 55-longitude line in the Atlantic to the International Dateline in the Pacific. While other C-130 units receive taskings from the geographic combatant commander they support or the Air Force Reserve Command for training missions, the 53rd WRS receives its taskings from the National Hurricane Center, a Department of Commerce agency.
Through an interagency agreement, tropical weather reconnaissance is governed by the National Hurricane Operations Plan, which requires the squadron to support 24-hour a day continuous operation with the ability to fly up to three storms simultaneously and with a response time of 16 hours. To accomplish this, the squadron has 10 full-time and 10 part-time Reserve aircrews available to fly 10 WC-130J Super Hercules to meet weather reconnaissance taskings.
The Hurricane Hunters role in improving forecasts is crucial especially in an era of storms that go through rapid intensification, which according to NHC is when winds from a tropical cyclone increase at least 34.5 mph in 24 hours, which is a leap of two categories on the Saffir-Simpon scale. Helene spun up from a tropical storm to a Category 4 in about 64 hours, which didn’t provide Floridians much time to prepare or evacuate.
“Storms that move into the Gulf can be hard to forecast and they have resulted in significant damage over the past several years and are subject to life-threatening storm surge, catastrophic winds, flooding
rainfall and isolated tornados. Some of these systems over the Gulf can go through rapid intensification with little lead time,” said Cotto. “Rapid intensification is a phenomenon that is difficult to forecast and forecast models still have a hard time predicting it. This is a feature that Hurricane Hunters can analyze while flying the system, providing real-time insight of the storm. By relaying how well or fast it’s developing, NHC forecasters then have the chance to make quick updates on their watches and warnings and quality check the current forecast trends.”
With less time to prepare for hurricanes such as Milton and Helene, advance preparation is key and the data the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron provides to NHC is vital, potentially saving lives and property, said Lt. Col. Brad Boudreaux, 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron pilot.
He was the pilot in command for the mission into Milton Oct. 8 that departed from Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi at 2 p.m. During his mission the hurricane re-intensified from a category 4 to a category 5, which made his first pass through the eyewall a rough ride, he said.
“They key to everything we do here is to narrow the cone of uncertainty,” said Boudreaux, explaining this is the most probable track of a storm. “Our job is to provide weather information to the National Hurricane Center so that they can provide the best forecast so people can prepare.”
Forecasts, storm warnings and evacuation orders are only effective if people heed them and prepare. It’s best for communities to prepare in advance for extreme weather, water and climate events, said Rickert.
For information visit https://www.ready.gov/ or www.weather.gov/wrn/.
(Losurdo is assigned to the 403rd Wing public affairs office.)