Wait, Somone’s Job is Actually Flying into Hurricanes?

Why would anyone fly straight into a hurricane? The answer came with the arrival of the Hurricane Hunters in Belize, bringing in a specialist aircraft as part of the Caribbean Hurricane Awareness Tour.

“It’s kind of going around spreading awareness, hurricane preparedness, meeting with local officials, and opening the aeroplane up for the public and explaining why we do what we do and how we do it,” said hurricane hunter and pilot Jordan Mentzer.

These planes do the dangerous work of entering storms to collect data satellites cannot capture, feeding real-time information into forecast models used across the Caribbean.

“We’ve been doing this for a long time,” Mentzer said, adding, “We’ve learnt how to do things safely and what things to avoid and the safest way to operate in a hurricane as safely as we can be.”

Warning coordinator meteorologist for the National Hurricane Center, Robbie Berg, says the data collected is information that can change the accuracy of life-saving forecasts. “To have these planes is critical,” she said. “They get us the data from the actual belly of the storm, so we understand how strong it is, where it’s located, and what its pressure is, and then we can make a more accurate forecast.”

Belizean officials and dozens of students toured the aircraft and got a rare look inside the flying laboratory.

Minister of Public Service and Disaster Risk Management Henry Charles Usher said Belize’s inclusion in the tour is significant, stating that initiatives like these can inspire “the next generation of Belizean scientists, pilots, meteorologists, and engineers”.

We’ll take you through the aircraft in tonight’s News Five newscast; tune in at 6 o’clock.