Hurricanes

Every late summer/early fall I turn into a bit of a weather geek, ever since we moved to Long Island several years ago. There can and have been direct hits from hurricanes here. A great site to keep up on the latest hurricane events is at the National Weather Service/ National Hurricane Center. There are up to the hour/minute predictions and images there, which are fascinating to delve into. Perhaps the ultimate site for weather nerds is the Weather Underground, which hosts a hurricane blog run by meteorologist Jeff Masters. This is the best way to get the latest info on storms. The comments section of the blog is very entertaining, but sometimes the amateur comments (it does not appear to be thoroughly moderated) are a little tedious.

Dr. Masters noted in yesterday’s blog post that one of the Hurricane Hunter aircraft had quite a nasty surprise with turbulence flying into Hurricane Felix that day. These are flights run by NOAA that provide vital close-up data (impossible to get from satellites and ground radar) on storms that are necessary for accurate forecasts. He then linked to a narrative of the most harrowing (and last, apparently) flight he was on in a Hurricane Hunter, into Hugo in 1989. This is an absolutely gripping read and I highly recommend it. I freaking hate even minor turbulence on commercial flights. I cannot imagine what the Hurricane Hunters go through routinely.

In my opinion you have to be stone crazy to do that. But I’m really glad those guys do it, because the data they provide saves lives and enables vital ongoing research into the dynamics of hurricanes.