Video of Tuesday’s flight showed NOAA investigators with the agency’s Joint Chiefs of Staff holding down the interior of the aircraft as the storm’s 155 mph (249 kph) winds battered the plane. Outside, only the wing of the plane was visible in the dark gray storm clouds.
The crew of “Miss Piggy” was flying into the giant storm to collect data to improve forecasts and expand their understanding of the storm.
“That data will then be sent to the National Hurricane Center and the weather models to help us identify that track forecast,” Sofia de Solo, NOAA’s director of flight, told Flying Magazine.
He said the data is “extremely important this time as the hurricane is expected to hit a densely populated and highly vulnerable area that was just hit by Hurricane Helene.”
Tampa is particularly vulnerable to storms because of the gentle slope of the Gulf of Mexico floor along Florida’s west coast.
NOAA said its planes — “Miss Piggy” and “Kermit” — are used for “exhausting” missions of 8-10 hours.
“Placement in the eyeball of a hurricane, battered by howling winds, blinding rain and violent updrafts and downdrafts before entering the relative calm of the eye of the storm, NOAA’s two four-engine Lockheed WP-3D Orion turboprop aircraft, nicknamed affection and “K ‘Miss Piggy,’ examine every wind and pressure change, repeating the often grueling experience over and over during an 8-10 hour mission,” NOAA’s website explained.
The service said the planes’ tails are equipped with Doppler radar and underbody radar systems, which “scan the storm vertically and horizontally, giving scientists and meteorologists a real-time look at the storm.”
“P-3s can also deploy probes called bathythermographs that measure sea temperature,” NOAA said.
At one point in the video, the hurricane pushes the plane so hard that equipment – and a researcher’s phone and wallet – are thrown around the interior of the plane.
“Oh shit, can you grab my phone and my wallet quick?” a crew member can be heard saying, closing the video by saying “Oh my God” while pointing the camera at the window to show the plane has been moved to a safer location.
Bumpy ride into Hurricane #Milton on @NOAA WP-3D Orion #NOAA43 “Miss Piggy” to collect data to help improve the forecast and support hurricane research.
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Visit for information that you… pic.twitter.com/ezmXu2Zqta— NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (@NOAA_HurrHunter) October 8, 2024
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