The sky darkened, lightning flashed and a jolt of turbulence shook the cabin of the hulking Air Force turbo-prop aircraft as it plied its way toward the eye of Hurricane Irma, one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever recorded.
Piloting the four-engine, WC-130J aircraft was Air Force Reserve Lieutenant Colonel Jim Hitterman, who over the past 22 years has flown into 40 to 50 hurricanes.
Every storm is different but he likens the experience to driving through a car wash - with one big difference.
“As you’re driving through that car wash, a bunch of gorillas start jumping on top of your car,” Hitterman said, adding that sometimes shaking gets so bad, he cannot see his instruments.
On Friday and Saturday, Reuters accompanied the Air Force Reserves’ “Hurricane Hunters,” whose hard-won data taken directly from the center of storms like Hurricane Irma are critical to U.S. forecasts that save lives.
Experts say U.S. satellite data simply cannot do the job.
“We can estimate by satellite what the strength and size of a hurricane is. But only if you go into the hurricane can you really get an accurate measure of its exact center location, the structure, the maximum winds,” said Rick Knabb, a hurricane expert at the Weather Channel and a former director the National Hurricane Center.
The 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron’s “Hurricane Hunters” are based at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi. Its members trace the origin of hurricane hunting to a 1943 barroom dare by two then-Army Air Corps pilots to fly through a hurricane off Texas.
Today, the missions are carried out largely by Air Force reservists who, after a few days or weeks of chasing storms, return to their jobs in the civilian world.
Hitterman, 49, flies for Delta Airlines most of the time and, as a hobby, races motorcycles.
