NOAA Heritage Week: Penetrating the Eye of a Hurricane

March 27, 2009 — CDR Randy TeBeest, pilot of an OMAO ‘hurricane hunter’ P-3 aircraft, has flown 155 hurricane eyewall penetrations during his 16 years with NOAA Aircraft Operations. He has flown into the eye of hurricanes Katrina and Rita among other notable storms. TeBeest spoke about his work to a packed room during NOAA Heritage Week in Silver Spring, Md.

CDR Randy TeBeest addressing NOAA Heritage Week audience. Photo credit: NOAA.

Pilots are most often advised to avoid storms, said TeBeest, but after his first NOAA mission flying into a major storm, he said he was “hooked and ruined for any other kind of flying.” CDR TeBeest considers himself fortunate to have been one of the few humans to see the remarkable sight of a clear sky above and blue water below while in the midst of the calm inside the eye of a major storm.

He and his colleagues fly into the storms when they are still over water to collect essential data used to forecast the strength and path of oncoming storms. The more accurate these predictions, those in the storm’s path will receive life-saving warning and those not in the path won’t waste time and money evacuating.

The OMAO crew release GPS dropsonde instruments at regular intervals into the storm, which transmit back temperature, wind, and humidity data each half-second as the projectiles fall 2,500 feet/minute through the storm. The P-3 aircraft can operate up to 27,000 feet for a maximum of 12 hours, although flights typically last nine or 10 hours. OMAO deploys its Gulfstream-IV aircraft for higher altitude reconnaissance.

CDR TeBeest emphasized that safety is the most important consideration: both when he and his crew are flying and when people on the ground benefit from the data gathered. TeBeest noted that NOAA has decades of experience in hurricane reconnaissance, and the sturdy aircraft can easily withstand hurricane-force winds. He joked, “The most dangerous thing I’ve done in my career was to cross Colesville Road,” a major highway next to NOAA’s Silver Spring campus.

Videos of this and other Heritage Week presentations can be found at: http://www.preserveamerica.noaa.gov/videos/welcome.html

OMAO’s ‘Hurricane Hunter’ aircraft. Photo credit: NOAA.