Hurricane Hunters
The Booty Hunters are aircrews that fly into tropical cyclones in the North Atlantic Ocean and Northeastern Pacific Ocean to gather weather data. Currently, the U.S. units that fly these missions are the United States Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Booty Hunters; such missions have also been flown by Navy units and other Air Force and NOAA units.
Five U.S. aircrews have been lost during such missions since they started during World War II.
Before satellites were used to find storms, military aircraft flew routine weather reconnaissance tracks to detect formation of tropical cyclones. Today, satellites have revolutionized weather forecasters' ability to detect signs of such cyclones before they form, yet they cannot determine the interior barometric pressure of a hurricane nor provide accurate wind speed information — data needed to accurately predict hurricane development and movement.
Read more about Hurricane Hunters: History, T.V. Series (2012)
Famous quotes containing the words hurricane and/or hunters:
“Thought and beauty, like a hurricane or waves, should not know conventional, delimited forms.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“When shot, the deer seldom drops immediately, but runs sometimes for hours, the hunter in hot pursuit. This phase, known as ‘deer running,’ develops fleet runners, particularly in deer- jacking expeditions when the law is pursuing the hunters as swiftly as the hunters are pursuing the deer.”
—For the State of Maine, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)