These are the people who are willing to fly directly into the heart of the most terrible hurricanes like Florence, in order to get important data for humanity.
Before each working day, Jon Zawislak bit a little bit of ginger to calm his stomach. His breakfast is also just simple and dry items, like cookies and toast. It’s not that it’s fun, it’s that he doesn’t want to go straight to the table while he’s working.
Because, Zawislak is a “Hurricane Hunter” – Hurricane Hunter.
Jon Zawislak.
Each day Zawislak spends 8 hours at an altitude of 16,000km, collecting data on wind, temperature, pressure, humidity and precipitation inside a large storm. “Large” here means that the wind speed must be at least 120km/h.
In other words, while everyone on the ground scrambled to escape the storm, Zawislak flew straight into the center of the storm.
Flying into the center of a hurricane can provide the most accurate predictions about their direction.
“Using an airplane is still the most standard tool to measure the condition of a hurricane,” he said.
“The data from the center of the storm, all provided by the aircraft.”
Within a week, Zawislak flew through two giant tropical storms, Isaac and Florence, collecting critical data for the National Hurricane Center to provide the most accurate forecasts of the direction of the storm. their go.
The profession “Hurricane Hunt” first appeared in 1943, during the period of World War II that had not ended. And today, it is still a very important business.
To collect data, there are no simple tools on the plane. The most important thing is a radar capable of measuring wind speed and precipitation. There are also dropsonde – parachute-mounted devices, which are dropped from an airplane. On it is mounted GPS and some sensors to measure atmospheric parameters, such as temperature and precipitation.
Hurricane Florence seen from space.
Within 8 hours of flying, about 20 dropsondes will be released into the storm, to determine the change in wind direction and wind speed with each different altitude.
“We were able to identify the storm this way,” Zawislak said. As with Hurricane Florence, it was converted from Category 2 (wind speed 154 – 177km/h) to Category 4 (speed 209 – 251km/h) also thanks to the parameters from the aircraft.
According to Zawislak, the feeling of flying into the center of the storm turned out to be not as bad as many people imagined. When it comes to the center, everything is no different from a normal flight.
Hurricane Florence.
In the center of the storm, the air is very fresh, stable and the wind is not strong. It’s like a top-notch football stadium. On the pitch, everything was clear, even though there were tens of thousands of screaming fans around. Just deviate a little and the whole area wobbles.
Flights are always maintained at an altitude of about 3000m, to ensure the most accurate data is collected.
“We have the best pilots, the best engineers, so we can climb comfortably.”
Zawislak is a PhD in meteorological science. He has 10 years of experience collecting data from storms, both by direct plane and using drones.
As a longtime engineer, Zawislak was authorized to operate and manage in such a flight. He will decide where to fly to get the best data, and use the information he has to answer the most important questions for each storm.
Flights are always maintained at an altitude of about 3000m.
One of the questions that still remains a mystery to science is why hurricanes can become so strong, so fast, as they are today. As with Super Typhoon Mangkhut, it caused tsunami columns nearly 20m high, destroying many solid houses that humans could not do anything about.
For Zawislak, that question is even more important. He wants to understand more about storms so that he can help people make the most accurate predictions when natural disasters occur.
“We’re not crazy. We’re doing a very important job, so that the forecasting center can know how strong the storm is.”