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New research reveals how hurricane hunters improve forecasts before and after landfall

local10.com · 12dShare

Hurricane hunters — aircraft crews from the U.S. Air Force and NOAA that routinely fly hundreds of missions each season (NOAA banked 63 missions in 2025 while the Air Force flew a total of 77 missions last season), piercing directly into the heart of hurricanes to collect critical data for forecasters — have been a mainstay of the U.S. hurricane warning network for over 70 years. Leer en español Over the years, studies have shown data collected by hurricane hunters, which drop thousands of instruments each year into the core of hurricanes and surveil the structure of storms by way of 3-dimensional radar, help to improve track and intensity forecasts by an average of 10 to 20 percent. For a four- to five-day forecast, that amounts to a reduction in track error of about 25 miles. With coastal evacuations costing about $1 million per mile, this improvement from hurricane hunters alone is estimated to save taxpayers about $25 million for each hurricane impact. Now, in new research publishe

First report: Major hurricane Genevieve roars in the Pacific as Hurricane Fausto nears Hawaii — mdjonline.com, 15d