It is the most dangerous office in the world. 10,000 feet up, flying straight into the heart of a gathering storm. That's the job of Hurricane Hunters, the Air Force storm reconnaissance planes that provide the storm data the entire region relies on.
Today, they visited Belize as part of a Caribbean awareness tour hosted by the National Met Service. Jaleeza Roberts attended the ceremony at the PGIA and went inside the might aircraft to get a feel of what it's like:
Hurricane Hunters, these are the massive US Airforce aircraft - that go into the heart of hurricanes to see storm walls both sublime, and scary:
Tonight the WC-130J Hurricane Hunter - known as a Super Hercules - is in Belize but not to hunt a storm - instead to create public awareness about how what they do at 10,00 feet in the air provides critical date to save lives on the ground in Belize, and throughout the Tropical storm belt.
It's a part of National Hurricane Preparedness week and with hurricane season 49 days away, the Minister of Disaster Risk management says that this should be inspiring:
Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Disaster Risk Management
"This is really about inspiring the next generation of Belizean scientists, pilots, meteorologists, engineers, the young people that are going to be touring this aircraft for the rest of today. I am really hoping that out of that they can really be inspired to study science"
Belize is one of the three stops the Hunter and its crew are making in this region and we spoke with one of the pilots who has over 100 hurricanes under his belt. He told us what it's like:
Jordan Mentzer, Pilot
"I got hired in 2009 and then you go through couple years of training as far as also training school and then pilot training and then you have to go to the specialized C130 school and so we're trained just like other C130J pilots and then when you get back to the unit you do more specialized training for the weather mission your first couple seasons you fly with an instructor pilot, people who are a little more seasoned than you and so all the hurricane stuff is special training specific within our squadron"
One would think that being 10,000 feet up in the air in the awesome and fearsome eye of a hurricane would be a vulnerable space, but Mentzer says he's never seen anything go serioulsy wrong:
Jordan Mentzer, Pilot
"Not significantly like you have lightning strikes and hail and stuff and you can see when paint comes off and you'd have a hydraulic leak during a storm but I've never had anything seriously go wrong with the airplane in a storm. We can really operate out of anywhere, so during storm season we are kind of, we get our plan from the national hurricane center and everyday the next day we can send 3 airplanes out to St.Couret where we can go to Miami off the east coast if there's something out there. We can actually touch storms that will affect Bermuda from Caye Slur. Obviously Hawaii, we need a little bit of lead time but basically we can kind of operate out of anywhere"
The plane we saw today was only one of the 10 Hunter aircraft and they form an important part of the information network shared with the National Hurricane Center and Belize's MET office:
Robbie Berg, Warning Coordination Meteorologist - National Hurricane Center
"Our job is to forecast where they're gonna go, how strong they're gonna be, and how big they're gonna be over the next 5 days and then based on that we put out watches and warnings for the United States, we coordinate with the MET service here in Belize to coordinate watchings and warnings for this country and other countries across the Caribbean as well. So we start once the storm forms and in some cases we start before the storm even forms and so that can be days before the storm would even reach Belize, we start working with the MET service here within the country."
Robbie Berg, Warning Coordination Meteorologist - National Hurricane Center
"To have these planes is critical to our forecasts, the way I like to think of it is if you're grilling a steak you can see what the grill marks on the steak are like and that's like satellite pictures that we see from space but you really don't know what's going on inside the middle of that stake until you cut into it. That's what these planes do is get us the data in the actual belly of the storm so we understand how strong it is, where it's located, where its pressure is and then we can make a more accurate active forecast"
And while the Hunters are friends - most countries hope they don't have to appear in the skies above Belize during the coming hurricane season.
The Hunter tour leaves Belize for Puerto Rico tomorrow.
