brian myers issued
It was an airplane journey that the passengers will not soon forget. A plane owned and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) struck the center of Hurricane Milton on Tuesday, ahead of its eventual landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast. One of the hurricane hunters on board the plane carefully aimed his cellphone camera out the plane’s window and recorded footage that was equally horrifying and spectacular, providing a rare glimpse into what it looks like inside a storm of this size. I succeeded in taking a video.
The researchers were in highly unstable conditions, at times exposed to rapid descents and experiencing momentary weightlessness.
The video is just under two and a half minutes long and begins with the moment the user’s cell phone camera is used to capture the chaos outside the plane’s starboard window. Even though it was daytime, the heavy rain falling on the wings and engines made these airplane parts very difficult to see.
On a normal day, when you look out the airplane window, you might see white fluffy clouds or, if the sky is clear, a beautiful view of the scenery below. But the force of nature brought on by Hurricane Milton on Tuesday made it impossible to see beyond the plane’s wings.
The aircraft flies under the name “Miss Piggy” and is the twin of the agency’s other plane, affectionately known as “Kermit.”
The video then moves inside the aircraft, capturing the critical work of the crew onboard as they use a variety of equipment to monitor Hurricane Milton. The researchers found that they were in highly unstable conditions, at times subjected to rapid descents and experiencing momentary weightlessness.
The NOAA plane is a decades-old Lockheed WP-3D Orion that NOAA has operated since the 1970s. The aircraft flies under the name “Miss Piggy” and is the twin of the agency’s other plane, affectionately known as “Kermit.” These planes were built specifically for government agencies to allow personnel to use the latest technology to gather valuable information about these types of storms.
According to the National Weather Service, these dangerous missions allow researchers and scientists to measure various characteristics of storms, such as the central pressure of storms like Hurricane Milton and the surface winds swirling around the hurricane’s eye. It will look like this.
Hurricane Milton’s winds were recorded by NOAA as reaching nearly 150 mph, with gusts as high as 280 mph. Although the landfall was not the worst-case scenario some had predicted, the damage was widespread. Nearly 50 tornadoes were reported, 19 of which are confirmed.
These planes were built specifically for government agencies to allow personnel to use the latest technology to gather valuable information about these types of storms.
As you can imagine, this year’s hurricane season has been a busy one for Miss Piggy and her crew. Before Hurricane Milton’s devastation, Hurricane Helen tore through the Gulf of Mexico, causing a wave of destruction that devastated parts of Florida, and then headed north into Georgia, bringing torrential rain and strong winds. Massive flooding occurred as far north as Asheville, North Carolina, as rescue workers worked tirelessly to extricate scores of residents in the storm’s powerful wake.
