X-SciTech

Flying High Above Bonnie's Eye

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 24, 1998 / 8:21 PM EDT / CBS

As Hurricane Bonnie churned in the Caribbean and decided where to go Monday, a NASA scouting party assembled 500 miles away on Florida's Atlantic coast. They were about to examine a hurricane in a way that was never done before, reports CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod.

A DC-8 is loaded with cutting edge weather sensors and two video cameras. It's ready to fly 7 miles up and into the hurricane. A re-fitted U-2 spy plane will fly over it at 12 miles high, a record altitude for hurricane hunters.

Scientists are looking to study how storms intensify. They want to measure the wind and moisture in the upper reaches of the hurricane -- the engine that drives the storm.

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The information gathered by the mission may someday help save money on the ground. The federal government estimates the cost of evacuating coastal communities at $1 million per mile. The more precise the predictions are, the fewer places that need to be evacuated -- and the more money saved.