Brian Myers | updated
It was a plane ride that passengers will not soon forget. An aircraft owned and operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) flew over the center of Hurricane Milton on Tuesday ahead of the storm’s final landfall across the Florida Gulf Coast. One of the hurricane hunters aboard the spacecraft captured rare footage of what the inside of a storm this size looks like as he carefully aimed his cellphone camera out the plane’s window, recording footage that was equally terrifying and dramatic.
The researchers were in some pretty choppy conditions and sometimes had fast falls that made them experience momentary weightlessness.
The video is just under two and a half minutes long and begins with several moments where the user’s phone camera is used to capture the chaos outside the plane’s starboard window. Even in broad daylight, heavy rain pouring down on the wings and engines makes it very difficult to see parts of the plane.
Normally, when you look out the airplane window, you may see white cumulus clouds, or if the sky is clear, you may be able to see the beautiful scenery of the land below. But the forces of nature brought on by Hurricane Milton on Tuesday made it impossible to see anything beyond the plane’s wings.
The aircraft flies under the name “Miss Piggy” and is a twin to the agency’s other plane affectionately called “Kermit.”
The video then pans inside the aircraft to capture the critical work of the crew monitoring Hurricane Milton using a variety of equipment. It turns out that the researchers were in fairly choppy conditions and at times experienced temporary weightlessness due to the rapid fall.
NOAA’s plane is a decades-old Lockheed WP-3D Orion that the agency has operated since the 1970s. The aircraft flies under the name “Miss Piggy” and is a twin to the agency’s other plane affectionately called “Kermit.” The plane was built specifically for the agency to allow staff to gather valuable information about these types of storms using the latest technology.
According to the National Weather Service, these risky missions allow researchers and scientists to measure various properties of storms like Hurricane Milton: the central pressure and the surface winds that swirl around the eye of the hurricane.
Hurricane Milton’s winds were recorded by NOAA as sustained near 150 mph, with gusts reaching 180 mph. Although the landfall was not the worst-case scenario some had predicted, the damage was extensive. Nearly 50 tornadoes were reported and 19 were confirmed.
The plane was built specifically for the agency to allow staff to gather valuable information about these types of storms using the latest technology.
As you can imagine, this year’s hurricane season has been a busy one for Miss Piggy and those on board her. Before the devastation of Hurricane Milton, Hurricane Helen unleashed a wave of destruction that swept through the Gulf of Mexico, swept through parts of Florida and sent heavy rain and strong winds north through Georgia. Massive flooding occurred as far north as Asheville, North Carolina, as rescue workers worked tirelessly to rescue dozens of residents in the storm’s powerful aftermath.
