Video from NOAA’s WP-3D aircraft, nicknamed Miss Piggy, shows the view from inside Polo’s eye, looking up at the thunderstorms that make up the eyewall.
Polo, the beast of the Pacific hurricane season, reached Category 5 status—twice.
And Hurricane Hunters were on it. Video from NOAA’s WP-3D aircraft, nicknamed Miss Piggy, shows the view from inside Polo’s eye, looking up at the thunderstorms that make up the eyewall.
The eye almost looks like the inside of a giant bowl. That’s the stadium effect: in an intense hurricane, the eyewall can curve concave outward like this.
Hurricane Hunters fly in to directly measure a tropical cyclone’s winds and central pressure, pinning down just how strong a storm is as it approaches land—so the right warnings can be issued.
They also gather temperature, humidity, and wind data.
That information feeds computer models with a much better starting point for their hurricane forecasts, helping improve both track and intensity predictions.
