CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — During hurricane season, you're probably used to checking in on cool views of The Tropics with images like this: satellite images. But a view from inside the storm is one that can only be gathered by the brave, the Hurricane Hunters, and if you've ever wondered what it's like to fly through one of these tropical beasts, I spoke with somebody who's had firsthand experience.
"Well,a lot of people think it's the roughest ride in the world. It can be sometimes, but there's sometimes when it's not that bad." That's how Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Ricket with the United States Air Force Hurricane Hunters describes it. It's just another day of work for the Hurricane Hunters, a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force. The Hurricane Hunters are a team of meteorologists and aviators that fly into tropical trouble.
"Um, I don't know how many missions I've flown. I would say it's probably... Total missions, probably close to 100 in tropical missions," says Rickert.
It's not just a thrill ride. These reconnaissance missions are crucial for forecasters at the National Hurricane Center (NHC). From ocean buoys to dropsondes, the Hunters fly for hours, collecting as much information about the storm as possible.
"A lot of ,a lot of what we're collecting is, pretty much standard. You know, one of our goals is to get to the center of that storm exactly at flight level, and we use the winds to do that. We direct the plane, we tell the crew where we need to turn left or right, to get to basically that zero wind and the fixed point in the center of that storm," he explains. "And then we're also collecting on that track all the flight level data: the winds, the moisture, temperature, pressure all along that track, collecting surface winds along that track. And then we're also launching weather instruments called dropsondes throughout the entire storm that get put into the models and then that also provides structure, wind speeds at the surface of the ocean to the hurricane center."
Reconnaissance flights usually last about 8 to 10 hours, depending on the size, location, and how developed a storm is. Sometimes, the mission can even get personal. In 2020, Hurricane Zeta was headed to the Northern Gulf Coast, eventually making landfall in Cocodrie, Louisiana. But the flight into Zeta was unforgettable for Lt. Col. Rickert.
"I was on a Zeta flight, which actually that one hit home to me because that one actually was a landfall very close to where I live. And as I was flying it, I kind of was providing my wife and my family that it was increasing, it was strengthening as it was moving towards land. So, that was one of the ones that I was— kind of hit home for me. And then when it actually hit, there was actually stuff happening to our house while I was in San Antonio, because we had to leave the location to continue to fly."
This was the view as Hurricane Hunters flew into the eye of Erin, the first hurricane of the 2025 season.
Rickert says, "those weak ones, those disturbances, the ones that are not like, shaped very well are actually some of the more challenging ones because they're not standard. So those can be tricky flights just trying to find that center, trying to see what the wind field is and providing that to the [National] Hurricane Center."
That's this week's Hot Topics in the Tropics. If you want to learn more about the latest happening across the Tropical Atlantic Basin and of course resources to get you ready for hurricane season, click here.