NOAA hurricane hunters take on 'trailblazing' Cabo Verde mission
The meteorological team known for delving deep in the heart of severe storms recently ventured farther across the Atlantic to investigate the spawning ground of hurricanes as a way to improve forecasting.
A US Air Force Hurricane Hunter WC-130 reconnaissance aircraft is just one of the planes at NOAA's disposal in storm prediction missions, such as the one taken to Cape Verde in August. (Rhona Wise/AFP via Getty Images)
For a crew used to taking on daring missions, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hurricane hunters faction raised the bar even further over the summer, taking their talents far across the Atlantic Ocean.
In August, NOAA's hurricane hunters, a team that uses aircraft as high-altitude meteorological observation stations to help make more accurate predictions on hurricanes, went on a four-day mission in the region of the Cabo Verde Islands off the northwest tip of Africa.
"I look at the flight we just had as trailblazing," NOAA research division meteorologist and lead scientist on the mission Dr. Jason Dunion told CNN. "We've never taken the NOAA hurricane hunters out that far east. We've kind of opened the door to trying and doing more science out there."
The mission was intended to study hurricanes in their infancy and as they develop so the team can, in turn, fine-tune and improve its forecasting acumen.
"We see a lot of our hurricanes coming from a nursery over Africa," Dunion told CNN. "It's just south of the Sahara Desert, and little tropical disturbances come out of that nursery, and they account for over half the named storms that we see in the Atlantic and about 80% to 85% of the major hurricanes that we see."
Several tropical disturbances already have been emerging midway through this hurricane season.
AccuWeather forecasters said one of the disturbances churning about 1,000 miles west-northwest of the Cabo Verde Islands has a high chance of developing into the next named storm, which will be called Fiona. Another tropical wave that recently emerged from the western coast of Africa was fighting with dry air and has a lower chance of developing in the next couple of days.
Data the hurricane hunters have gathered from their Cabo Verde mission will allow for less guessing and improve forecasts on hurricane track and intensity, allowing for better planning on when and how a severe storm may hit. The hurricane hunters also gathered data that will eventually show why some storms slowly grow in strength while others taper off.
The nine-member crew gleaned information from tropical waves in the area, which will be input into computer models used for storm forecasting, in order to have a more reliable extended forecast of up to five days. Currently, forecast models take a stab at where the center of a storm is before the hurricane hunter aircraft can fly inside and pinpoint an exact center location.
Stickers of the previous hurricanes taken on by 'Kermit,' a NOAA WP-3D Orion hurricane hunter, adorn the side of the aircraft. The hurricane hunter team recently took a trip across the Atlantic to Cape Verde. (Rhona Wise/AFP via Getty Images)
Typically set in more of a national setting within the United States, the August mission to Cabo Verde (as well as one more potential mission during hurricane season, pending conditions) looks to "advance the science" of storm forecasting, Dunion explained.
"I think NOAA took a really big step as far as being able to really operate across the Atlantic," Dunion said.
The hurricane hunter crew has been involved in a bevy of low-altitude missions in the heart of storms, using NOAA's specialized aircraft such as the WP-3D Orions, which deploy drone tools known as dropwindsondes. The instruments are dropped to the surface and transmit data back about storm pressure, temperature, wind speed and other atmospheric measurements.
It has been a busy week in the tropics early this September, particularly in the Atlantic basin, where hurricanes Danielle and Earl are currently being monitored. As of Wednesday afternoon, Earl had maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (130 km/h), with the system likely to become the first major hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic season, AccuWeather forecasters said.
An uptick in tropical activity is likely to continue through September, and AccuWeather's long-range team of meteorologists expects an active October with the potential for another storm or two in November, the last month of the official hurricane season in the Atlantic.
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