Hurricane Hunter plane in Southeast Texas today

southerngale · #1 Postby **southerngale** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 3:40 pm

I've been out of town for several days and just found out that a hurricane hunter plane landed at Jefferson County airport today and is open to the public for tours. I'm about to head over there. I'm excited as I've never seen one before!

'Hurricane Hunter' plane lands in Southeast Texas
April 27, 2010 12:07 PM
Scott Lawrence

A specially equipped aircraft that flies into hurricanes and helps scientists predict their direction, intensity and landfall, touched down Tuesday for an afternoon of media briefings and educational tours at the Southeast Texas Regional Airport.

* Click here to view our photo slideshow from the Hurricane Hunter's visit to Southeast Texas.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operates the WP-3D Orion. According to NOAA, the plane plays an "integral role in hurricane forecasting. Data collecting during hurricanes by these high-flying meteorological stations and from a variety of other sources is fed into numerical computer models to help forecaster predict how intense a hurricane will be, and when and where it will make landfall."

The P-3s are based at NOAA's Aircraft Operations Center at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida.

Bill Read, the director of the Tropical Prediction Center, which includes the National Hurricane Center and two other divisions, accompanied the plane to Jefferson County.

KFDM News spoke with Read and Jamie Rhome, a scientist who is working on storm surge prediction models for NOAA.

The public can tour the plane from 2:30 p.m. - 5 p.m.

To learn more about the plane and its mission click here.

Watch Live at 5 and KFDM News at 6 & 10 for more on the story.

SETXWXLADY · #2 Postby **SETXWXLADY** » Tue Apr 27, 2010 10:00 pm

I went to see the plane too! Was going to try to take some pics but hubby formatted my memory card. :cry:

All I got were a few. But none of the whole plane. :lol:

Oh well it was pretty cool anyway.

southerngale · #3 Postby **southerngale** » Wed Apr 28, 2010 4:24 pm

Yeah, I was like a kid in a candy store. lol I don't have time right now, but I'll post some pics within the next few days. You're welcome to snag any that you want.

I got a Hurricane Hunters shirt, HH embroidery patch, HH sticker for my car, magnet, and lots of info. I had some interesting talks with the hurricane hunters and I held a dropsonde... oooh, I'm such a goober.

#4 Postby **Cookie** » Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:03 pm

congrats you just made some one very jealous lol

#5 Postby **thetruesms** » Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:49 pm

southerngale wrote:Yeah, I was like a kid in a candy store. lol I don't have time right now, but I'll post some pics within the next few days. You're welcome to snag any that you want.

I got a Hurricane Hunters shirt, HH embroidery patch, HH sticker for my car, magnet, and lots of info. I had some interesting talks with the hurricane hunters and I held a dropsonde... oooh, I'm such a goober.

Alas, I have to do that work thing instead of checking out the plane and getting stuff

SETXWXLADY · #6 Postby **SETXWXLADY** » Wed Apr 28, 2010 6:55 pm

Cookie wrote:congrats you just made some one very jealous lol

Lol. That makes 2 of us. Wow all I got was 2 magnets. And them only cuz I think the guy felt sorry for me. :lol:

For some reason my cane didn't get put into the truck before we left the house ( I'm blaming hubby for that too :lol:

) and I could barely stand in line and was completely done in by time I got off the plane. But I was determined to see it. It was neat. :cheesy:

Looking forward to seeing the pics. And that is so cool about the drop sonde.

#7 Postby **Cookie** » Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:12 pm

SETXWXLADY wrote:
Cookie wrote:congrats you just made some one very jealous lol

Lol. That makes 2 of us. Wow all I got was 2 magnets. And them only cuz I think the guy felt sorry for me. For some reason my cane didn't get put into the truck before we left the house ( I'm blaming hubby for that too ) and I could barely stand in line and was completely done in by time I got off the plane. But I was determined to see it. It was neat. Looking forward to seeing the pics. And that is so cool about the drop sonde.

Least you got a chance to go on it,

I cant see them doing a tour of the uk any time soon :eek:

SETXWXLADY · #8 Postby **SETXWXLADY** » Wed Apr 28, 2010 8:18 pm

Cookie wrote:
SETXWXLADY wrote:
Cookie wrote:congrats you just made some one very jealous lol

Lol. That makes 2 of us. Wow all I got was 2 magnets. And them only cuz I think the guy felt sorry for me. For some reason my cane didn't get put into the truck before we left the house ( I'm blaming hubby for that too ) and I could barely stand in line and was completely done in by time I got off the plane. But I was determined to see it. It was neat. Looking forward to seeing the pics. And that is so cool about the drop sonde.

Least you got a chance to go on it,

I cant see them doing a tour of the uk any time soon

Ok ya got me there. :oops:

And I did get pics of the side of the plane showing all the countries and storms they've flown into. Recently they flew Rita Gustav and Ike. I'm just hoping they don't have a reason to fly over my house again. :lol:

But seriously I was surprised they actually came here. They save a lot of lives with what they do. And it was an honor to meet them. I'd go up in one in a heartbeat. But they probably wouldnt let me.

Category 5 · #9 Postby **Category 5** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 3:57 am

I got the pleasure of going in 2007 in Cape May. Was a great experience, the flight crew were awesome, great guys. Had some awesome stories, one of them was on the infamous Hugo flight, amazing story that was.

Frank2 · #10 Postby **Frank2** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 8:50 am

If it's the P-3's, be prepared to walk up a steep stairway to get inside the plane (considerably steeper than the stairways used for commercial airliners), so anyone with weight or hip problems should realize that it might be better just take a photo from the outside, especially since the going down is more difficult than the going up...

I'm a bicyclist of many years of average height and weight and even I thought it was a challenge when going back down (though I've always gotten dizzy when it comes to heights), so...

Don't misunderstand - it's not the vertical "stairway" of the old B-29 bombers that required muscle and skill to climb, but instead is just a steep straight stairway, so a word of caution...

Frank

P.S. In searching the Internet they now sell lifts for the P-3 stairways for those with mobility problems (perhaps for the older scientific staff), so that should give a person some idea...

southerngale · #11 Postby **southerngale** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 9:41 am

It was a P-3, but it wasn't difficult to get on or off the plane. As for the loot, I bought the shirt, but the other stuff was given to me. I had a great time talking with the hurricane hunters, NWS LCH guys, etc. I met a lot of people... a weather nerd's dream. lol

When we were talking to the HH who was explaining to everyone what a dropsonde was, my sister asked if she could hold it, wondering how light it was. Then I held it. It was even lighter than I had imagined. Of course I had to bring up how we decode them on s2k as the data comes in and that sparked a conversation about that.

Frank2 · #12 Postby **Frank2** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 10:09 am

It is fun - the day they were at the Opa Locka Airport (2006) they used the rear stairway and and per the aircraft's design is steeper than the forward stair (the one behind the cockpit) so that's something to remember...

http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag198.htm

http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/aircraft_lockheed.htm

Frank

SETXWXLADY · #13 Postby **SETXWXLADY** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 1:32 pm

Frank2 wrote:It is fun - the day they were at the Opa Locka Airport (2006) they used the rear stairway and and per the aircraft's design is steeper than the forward stair (the one behind the cockpit) so that's something to remember...

http://www.magazine.noaa.gov/stories/mag198.htm

http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/aircraft_lockheed.htm

Frank

The only reason I had trouble was because of the back. Well sometimes it takes out the legs. Depending on how mad I make it. :cheesy:

After standing in that line that stairwell rail was a Godsend. And There was definitely A LOT of stuff to lean on inside the plane. But you do make a point about accessibility. Navigating the stairs and the inside of the plane with as much as a walker might be kinda hard. If they ever come through here again I'll probably have to pass on the inside. But I'm glad I got to see it. I'm a weather geek/nerd too.

But I didn't know that y'all decode the dropsondes on this site. That's cool. I guess I'm a weather nerd with a lot to learn. :oops:

southerngale · #14 Postby **southerngale** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 5:18 pm

A lot of pics... click the ones you want to see. I had to leave some out due to people not wanting to be online in the pics.

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

#15 Postby **Cookie** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 5:40 pm

wow amazing photos mate

#16 Postby **TYNI** » Thu Apr 29, 2010 9:18 pm

Great PICS!!!!!

#17 Postby **brunota2003** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 5:53 am

So, you got to go on Kermit, hm? Sweet! I'm jealous, being stuck in Iraq...think they could bring their tour out here? Haha!

SETXWXLADY --> We usually decode just about everything here on the site. Dropsondes, Vortex messages, etc will all be decoded in the Recon thread when we have a system going (that has Recon flying into it obviously). Some of us even post images showing where the recon plane is after the data comes in, over a sat image from Google Earth.

SETXWXLADY · #18 Postby **SETXWXLADY** » Fri Apr 30, 2010 12:04 pm

brunota2003 wrote:So, you got to go on Kermit, hm? Sweet! I'm jealous, being stuck in Iraq...think they could bring their tour out here? Haha!

SETXWXLADY --> We usually decode just about everything here on the site. Dropsondes, Vortex messages, etc will all be decoded in the Recon thread when we have a system going (that has Recon flying into it obviously). Some of us even post images showing where the recon plane is after the data comes in, over a sat image from Google Earth.

That'll be sweet!

I've seen some of the data on the internet but couldn't make heads or tails of a lot of it.

Hurricane Hunter plane in Southeast Texas today

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