Hurricane Hunter
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This is what you'd hear if you took off in a turboprop to fly into a hurricane.

ROAR OF A TURBOPROP PLANE

Dozens of people do this every year for the U.S. Air Force and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They're the hurricane hunters, and for over half a century they've flown prop planes into the nastiest storms.

It's the only way to find out exactly what's happening under those clouds. Even with satellites, we wouldn't know the exact pressure and wind speed in a hurricane without the help of these P-3s and C-130s.

Now, these prop planes have a jet-powered partner.

ROAR OF GULFSTREAM

A Gulfstream-IV aircraft flies out of MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida to take a different bead on hurricanes. Like the prop planes, the Gulfstream sends instruments into the storm via parachute, and the instruments radio back important data. But while the prop planes circle within a storm, the Gulfstream soars around the top of it.

Hurricanes are guided by the wind at upper levels, so the Gulfstream examines where the air is flowing at a height of up to 40,000 feet. Back in 1998, a hurricane named Danielle was on an ominous path from the Atlantic toward the U.S. coast. But the data from the Gulfstream indicated that the upper-level steering currents would recurve the storm just in time. Forecasters held off on a hurricane watch. Sure enough, Danielle curved to the northeast just as expected. This forecast may have saved more than a million dollars in evacuation costs, and it wouldn't have happened without the newest member of our hurricane-hunting family.

Thanks today to contributing writer Bob Henson of Boulder, Colorado. The Weather Notebook is a production of the Mount Washington Observatory and supported by the National Science Foundation. Check out more on jet meteorology and the weather at www.weathernotebook.org.