The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has set three world records for its drone hurricane hunter. In September 2022, NOAA researchers flew a 27-pound unmanned drone into the eye of Hurricane Ian, a Category 5 storm that was just off the coast of Florida.
The drone was able to fly for 102 minutes in the hurricane, the longest drone flight ever recorded in a hurricane.
It also communicated with the researchers’ aircraft over a distance of 130 nautical miles, the longest communication distance ever recorded with a drone.
The drone observed wind speeds of 216 mph at an altitude of 2,100 feet, the fastest wind speed ever observed by a drone.
“We were shook so hard and so violently that we had to make sure the integrity of the crewed aircraft was there, so we left the storm,” said Joseph Cione, a member of the flight crew and the lead meteorologist for Emerging Technologies at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Florida.
The drone deployed from the belly of a P-3 NOAA plane and expanded its eight-foot wide wingspan so it could remain in the eyewall of the storm and send critical information back to the plane.
The drones can take more of a risk flying close to the ocean where conditions are often too dangerous for crewed planes.
This information will help NOAA scientists to better understand hurricanes and improve their forecasting models.