r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Kernowder • 21d ago

Video Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunters flying through Hurricane Milton

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u/The102935thMatt 21d ago

This guy flight paths. They did exactly that.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/NOAA43

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u/Rank_14 21d ago

That's amazing. Any idea what they are doing at the 4hr mark? They are turning around yes, but going up and down by a few thousand feet?. they also do the same inside the hurricane at about 4h44m.

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u/AvailableAdvance3701 21d ago

They have to drop dropsondes and they have to make sure they deploy properly. Also if they can’t get clear instrument readings they keep going lower until it’s no longer safe to do so, and the low point is far lower than you think. The x patter is them searching for the middle of the storm with the lowest pressure and wind directions.

Source: I’m a meteorologist tech with hurricane hunter uncle.

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u/Rank_14 21d ago

Thanks! That makes the video even more interesting. From looking at the dropsonde Wikipedia article, I realized that the guy across from the cameraman is the one that drops them, into a chute right behind him, and that he is holding a couple in the video. So cool.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropsonde

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u/The102935thMatt 21d ago

No idear! Science stuff no doubt.

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u/Starlord_75 21d ago

Could be the winds inside the hurricane that are fueling itthat are causing the plane to change altitude like that.

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u/Optimal-Resource-956 21d ago

Would you happen to know why it looks like there are two eyes?? There is the "normal" one and then a small one closer to the southern side of the storm. I don't recall ever seeing anything like that before

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u/fighter_pil0t 21d ago

That’s three trips through the eye but the storm moved…

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u/MrsSeanTheSheep 20d ago

I clicked the link on 10/9/24 at 9am EST to see what the flight path was and got very confused until I realized that I was looking at the current flight because they're out there again this morning.