Hurricane Hunters track Dean in Caribbean

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KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFPN) --  Air Force Reserve Command's Hurricane Hunters are in St. Croix, the U.S. Virgin Islands, flying state-of-the-art WC-130J aircraft into Hurricane Dean in support of the National Hurricane Center.

Hurricane Dean blasted St. Lucia, uprooting trees, downing power lines and damaging homes and other structures Aug. 17 as it spun into the Caribbean on a track that could take it near Jamaica as a powerful storm.

The Hurricane Hunters recorded Dean's minimum central pressure at 28.387 inches, moving toward the west at 22 mph, with sustained winds increasing to 125 mph. As of 4 p.m. Aug. 17, Dean was a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.

Forecasters in the hurricane center expect the storm to affect Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, dousing them with up to five inches of rain. Another reconnaissance mission was scheduled late Aug. 17. WC-130J crew members from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron will continue rotating aircraft through the storm until it is no longer a threat.

The 2007 season started May 9 with Sub-Tropical Storm Andrea. Since then, the season has been slow, which has allowed more aircraft to be equipped with the Stepped-Frequency Microwave Radiometer, affectionately called the "smurf."

Hurricane Hunters are using smurf technology on flights into Hurricane Dean. The smurf allows the Citizen Airmen of the Hurricane Hunters to constantly measure surface winds directly below the aircraft. The smurf can also determine rainfall rates within a storm system. This, in addition to wind speeds at flight level, provides structural detail of the storm.

"The SFMR will be the biggest advance I can think of to improve hurricane intensity forecasts," said Max Mayfield, former director of the NHC.

The data collected by the Hurricane Hunters increase the accuracy of the NHC forecast by 30 percent, a rate which will undoubtedly increase with the use of the smurf. This data enables the NHC to more accurately predict the path of storms in order to save lives and narrow areas of evacuation, according to NHC forecasters.

One WC-130J aircraft will be equipped with the SFMR each month until all 10 WC-130J aircraft are outfitted with the SFMR pod.

(Courtesy of 403rd Wing Public Affairs, Air Force Reserve Command News Service)

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