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Cleared for take-off, checklist complete.
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-Take-off power set. Power checks.
-Oh shit.
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Okay! Next stop hurricane Sam.
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-Wake it up please.
-Yeah.
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So we took off from St. Croix
and flying out here about 700 miles.
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We're gonna be dropping down 10,000 feet
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and going through the middle of it so…
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We're gonna fly through the middle of it?
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Yeah, right in the meat of it.
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Yeah we-- That's some heavy precip.
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Holy shit.
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You might want to
sit down with the camera.
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Woah! Fuck!
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This right here is our
dropsonde. It's uh, you know,
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it's a scientific weather instrument
that we use, it collects wind,
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uh, pressure, temperature, humidity.
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It's collecting data from the hurricane
and you shoot it out into the ocean.
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-Out the bottom of this tube right here.
-Wow.
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So actually I'm gonna
have you open it up here.
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So yeah, stuff that in there.
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-There you go.
-Oh! There we go. Woo! Heavy.
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That was it.
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-And here's the data coming in already.
-Yeah.
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So that's what the…
the humidity, the temperature of the air,
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-the pressure, all that.
-Yes sir.
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I always assume like,
you know, you're-- Okay, you're
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watching TV and you're seeing
here's where the hurricane is,
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that they were doing that through
satellite or radar or something.
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But you do-- This like
the movie Armageddon, it's
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like, we gotta send a team into the storm
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to find the exact-- That's the only way
we know where the storm really is.
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And then when you find it, you have to
drop a payload into the center of it.
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-And you do that multiple times a day?
-I guess so.
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-When there's a hurricane?
-I mean, we're not,
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blowing up the hurricane.
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You're almost blowing up the hurricane!
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The aircraft is really the only way
you're going to be able to get to find out
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the exact details of what's going on.
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We're also collecting
weather information all around the storm
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and sending that
information to the Hurricane Center.
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so it tells them a lot of information.
It tells them what--
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How big is the wind field around
the hurricane so they can issue warnings.
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I mean, indirectly we're saving
lives or helping save lives
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-Yeah.
-through emergency network, and
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hurricane forecast
is putting those warnings out there.
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We are deep in Sam's belly now.
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Sam ain't happy
we're here, let me tell ya.
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Okay, we're about to break in.
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And we're in the eye.
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Oh my God!
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Oh my fucking God.
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This is so beautiful, holy shit.
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It's just like you're in,
you're in these like…
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You're in clouds, you're in white clouds,
and then suddenly you break through
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and it's completely, like, clear,
you can see all the way down to the ocean,
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it's beautiful!
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A lot of us live on the
Gulf Coast or we have families that do,
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what we do directly helps them
make the decisions that they need to make
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as the storm moves into their area.
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Like, you're literally flying into one of
the most powerful natural events on earth
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and you're getting to see it in a way that
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no one else on earth does, I mean, it's
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such a privilege to be up here.
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What does it feel like to you
to do this, like every day?
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It's a privilege to have this
job. Millions of people feel the effects
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of what we do in improving
the forecast and it helps them to make
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safe and correct decisions
of what to do ahead of storms.
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-And so we're very lucky that
-Yeah.
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the job makes it easy
for us to, uh, see what we do
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-and, and it benefits the public.
-Yeah.
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Well, Mark, it has been
such a privilege being up here.
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-Thank you so much for having us.
-Yeah. It's been great having you, Adam.
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Incredible.
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Okay, I'm a little nauseous. I'm very
happy to have my feet back on the ground.
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Let's head to the
National Hurricane Center to see
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what the scientists there do
with the data that this plane collects.