Tracking Floyd From Within
When a major hurricane like Floyd is poised to pounce on the U.S. coastline, residents look to the National Hurricane Center to tell them what they need to know. But where does the center get its information?
They're called "The Hurricane Hunters" - the people of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron who fly inside hurricanes.
The Hurricane Center estimates its forecasts are 25 to 30 percent more accurate thanks to the work done by Air Force Reservists like the 53rd.
These guys make it look so easy, reports CBS News Correspondent Cynthia Bowers. She spent all day Wednesday aboard an Air Force C-130 getting an inside look at the giant storm.
"Since my first flight, I approach it with a bit of caution," said Lt. Jeff Wright.
He may be cautious, but Wright has the right stuff. At age 30, this reservist has already flown into plenty of big storms.
"Last year, Bonnie, Danielle, Mitch and George. This year, flown into Bret, Dennis and now this will be the first time into Floyd," he said.
But he says he'll never forget his first.
"It was very bumpy. It was an 11-hour flight. When I got done, I said, 'boy, that was a bad flight.' They said, 'that was nothing,'" he recalled.
Once a storm system forms, hurricane hunters begin round-the-clock missions - two 12-hour flights that can run the gamut from mundane to menacing.
Navigator Capt. Lance Ashlund is charged with plotting the course that will carry the C-130 transport plane safely back and forth through the eye of the storm. He says his worst ride came at night a couple of years ago.
"Getting lightning and getting rattled around a lot. We wanted to fix the storm. I was wishing I was somewhere else at that moment. But that doesn't happen often, thankfully," Ashlund said.
But that didn't happen on this flight.
For all its fearsome reputation, from the air, Floyd appears as miles and miles of cloud without much organization. Even the eye wasn't well-defined. But what really matters is what's happening on the ground. The work of these hurricane hunters has become increasingly vital. As coastal populations continue to soar, evacuation decisions need to be made more quickly.
When a sensor from the plane falls to the ocean surface it radios back information to the hurricane hunters - temperature, humidity, pressure and winds inside the storm.
Although much of the data showed the storm weakening slightly, the crew was most concerned by the dramatic side of the turbulent sea, churning ominously toward the Carolinas.
"It's going to pile up a lot of storm surge into Wilmington, possibly Myrtle Beach, that area. Right now from our perspective, it's not looking good for those guys," said Maj. Steve Renwick.
Perhaps the Hurricane Hunters were born in the early 1940s on a barroom dare. British pilots training in Texas challenged a U.S. Air Force pilo to fly his single-engine plane into a tropical storm. He did it - had to do it twice that day. First with his navigator, then with a weather expert. That was more than 50 years ago. By now, the heroics of these hunters are the stuff of legend.