Flying With Hurricane Hunters...

Hunting a hurricane is a task most people try to avoid. But for the five cew members on board a WC-130J aircraft, it's just another day at the office. A pilot, co-pilot, navigator, meteorologist, and dropsonde loadmaster are all it takes to run the ship. But with a fourth of the globe depending on their weather findings, they've got a big responsibility.

"What we do is we try to get people out of harm's way as early as we possibly can," said Mark Stevens, Navigator and LtCol for the Hurricane Hunters out of Keesler Air Force Base. "We try to get them the absolutely most accurate information that we can, and so far we've got a pretty good track record. Almost lmost 100% reliability."

The mission of the Hurricane Hunters is to provide surveillance of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and the central Pacific Ocean. The National Hurricane Center out of Miami depends on the data collected by Hurricane Hunters for their watches and warnings.

The Hurricane Hunters out of Keesler (officially known as the 403rd Wing) are the only operational unit in the entire Department of Defense that flies in search of severe weather on a regular basis.

The navigator keeps track of the aircraft's movement and monitors radar to avoid tornadic activity. The flight meteorologist observes and records weather data. The weather reconnaissance loadmaster collects and records meteorological data using the parachute-borne sensor known as a dropsonde. It measures and records weather data down to the ocean surface.

Hurricane season is quickly approaching June 1, and the National Hurricane Center predicts 17 named storms, 9 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes (Category 3 or above) for 2011. The names of the hurricanes are selected annually at a conference in Miami. The names alternate alphabetically from male to female.

New technology improves storm forecasts each season, but the hunters say there's no machine that can ever be able to replace flying into the hurricane.

"To be able to look out the window and say, hey, here's whats going on and happening, even when it comes to turbulance that the plane experiences, there's a lot of information that can be gathered from that," said Meteorologist Chris Dyke.

"I think for the weather officers' side its really the pinnacle of weather career fields," said Navigator Mark Stevens. "Aviation-wise it's so unique. Normally we all try to avoid bad weather and here we are driving toward it."