Radar loop of Hurricane Katrina making
landfall in 2005.
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With only a few days until the official start of hurricane season in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, my mind wanders back (it tends to do that these days) to the hurricane season of 1996. That particular season holds memory for me because that’s the year I got to see a hurricane from a perspective most folks never get the chance….from an airplane flying directly into the eye of the storm.
I was afforded this opportunity thanks to the folks that regularly fly into most every tropical storm and hurricane that forms in the Atlantic or Gulf. The Hurricane Hunters or the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the Air Force Reserve. They are the only Department of Defense organization still flying into tropical storms and hurricanes-since 1944. Their ten Lockheed-Martin WC-130J aircraft and crews are part of the 403rd Wing, based at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi.
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On July 1, 1996, a Cape Verde-type tropical system formed off the coast of Africa. As it made its way toward the United States, it soon achieved tropical storm status and was christened “Bertha”. Big B soon achieved hurricane strength and was apparently on the way to the eastern United States coastline.
Hurricane Bertha at Peak Intensity
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It was the afternoon of July 9 I received a call from the Hurricane Hunters. My name had come up on the list of media requests to fly with them. The Hunters allow a half dozen or so media members to accompany them on SOME of their reconnaissance missions, and after being on the waiting list for ten years, my time had arrived. Only issue was I needed to be at Homestead Air Force Base in south Florida by 5 a.m. the next morning. Channel 31 owned a corporate jet at that time, so I contacted our pilot and he determined we could make it with a couple of hours to spare. We departed at about midnight from Signature Flight Service Station and headed toward Homestead. During the flight our pilot radioed for landing instructions, and discovered, as a private jet, we could not land at the military installation, thus we decided to put down at Tamiami Executive airport about 25 miles away. This was not a 24 hour staffed facility at that time, so we picked a runway and landed. As we were coasting to a stop, we were greeted by five police vans and about a dozen heavily armed law enforcement agents. And those guns were pointed at us !
Our pilot explained our mission to them and only then did the tension ease. Turns out that airport was notorious for serving as a landing platform for drug runners, especially at that hour of the morning. We caught a cab and drove to Homestead.
After debriefing, we were off on our way to Hurricane Bertha; at that time located just east of Homestead about six hundred miles out. Our pilot had instructed us media types to strap up whenever he gave the order. I quickly found out why when we faced our initial turbulence approaching the hurricane eye. The hunters fly at ten thousand feet and go directly toward the eye of the storm. As soon as we penetrated the eye wall, it was peaceful and calm…one could see the sun shining above and the calm ocean below and looking toward the edge of the eye wall, you could see the violet swirling mass of the storm all around us.
Hurricane Hunter pilot doing his job
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The pilot flew directly to the center of the eye, and instructed the dropsonde operator to drop the package of instruments through a shute in the bottom of the plane. Instruments that would measure the various parameters of the storm and satellite the readings back to Corral Gables, Fl at the National Hurricane Center. Then we flew out of the eye, back into the turbulence and turned around and flew back in again. This went on for six passes through the eye. We were able to unstrap at various times of relative calm to walk around the plane, get pictures and ask questions of the crew.
Dropsonde operator prepares to drop
the parachute package of instruments
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The last pass through the storm was particularly rough and after a few minutes we observed the pilot back where we were strapped in; looking out the porthole windows toward the wings. He then announced, “We’ve lost an engine, so we’re going to have to return to base”. Naturally, I figured this was the way I was going to leave this earth. I could see the headlines…”Meteorologist Lost in the Atlantic”.
I discovered after a safe landing some 5 hours later, those C-130s can fly with only 1 of their 4 engines working….I think the crew was having fun making us think “we might not make it”.
But, we did! I also found out there has never been a crash or a lost aircraft of the Hurricane Hunters since their inception.
750,000 people were evacuated from the coastline areas of North and South Carolina in preparation for Bertha. Nearly 6000 homes were damaged, with 900 of them rendered uninhabitable. $135 million in insured damages were reported, with an estimated $270 million in total damages in the United States.
My hat is off to those folks for their dedication and love for the science of meteorology and the data gathering of the info about these storms we all use for tracking and measuring the strength of these powerful systems.
It was a great experience! I’d do it again in a heartbeat !
Gary Dobbs, Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
.JPG "Wheeler Lake, near Decatur, AL")
