Hard Choices for the Hurricane Hunters this Season

[Alacane2]

Hurricane Hunters: Flying two storms difficult, three impossible
Jul 24, 2013 6:20 PM CDT

BILOXI, MS (WLOX) -
Hurricane Hunters are tracking Tropical Storm Dorian while also keeping a watchful eye on the bottom line. Military officials said with sequestration and furloughs, the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron is facing some tough choices as to which storms they fly into and how often. They said that means the forecast models we depend on to tell people to evacuate may not be as accurate.

The mission of the Hurricane Hunters is to fly into the eye of the storm and gather information to help predict where that storm is likely to head next. However, the 403rd Wing Commander is wondering with sequestration and furloughs, how much hunting Hurricane Hunters will be able to do.

"I'll be honest with you, it's a very significant cut in capability. It's a 20 percent cut," said Col Craig LaFave. "On any given day, we'll have air crew, maintainers, and support personnel on furlough. Of course, as these storms pop up, we'll have to move furlough days and probably use overtime in certain areas to keep flying the storm."

Even with juggling furlough days, military officials say they can only stretch the manpower so far. Hurricane Hunters will only be able to fly so many missions at a time.

"Three we can't do. Two I can do for a short time," Col. LaFave said. "We're going to test that theory here this weekend. We're going to send three aircraft to Hawaii to fly that Eastern Pacific storm and we're going to seen three aircraft to the east to St. Croix. But the two storm scenario is only sustainable for about five or six days. After that we'll run out of people, essentially. So we're okay now at the beginning, but the problem is that if at the end of that period if another wave rolls off and we've already burned off our crews on the first couple of storms, that's when the real problems come up."

Officials said if two simultaneous missions prove to be too much, it may come down to some hard choices.

"The options will be either we prioritize the storms, or we don't fly certain storms, or we fly to all the storms less often. Those are going to be some of the tough choices that will be in discussion with the Hurricane Center," Col LaFave said. "If you make the model less accurate more people will have to evacuate, if more people have to evacuate it costs more money. So we are a money saving organization, believe it or not. It costs about a million dollars a mile to evacuate a high population area."

LaFave said his team is trying to figure out ways to make the numbers work. He should have a better idea of how far resources can be stretched until he runs out of people able to work. 

"It is a little odd to tell somebody you're furloughed on a Wednesday, but I need you overtime on Thursday," said Col. LaFave. "But we are not exempt. I have to follow the law. We are not exempt from furloughs or sequestration. I have to furlough everybody two days a pay period, every two weeks. I can work them on other days so we can mitigate to a degree working people on their non-furlough days. I just cannot cancel or exempt members from being furloughed."

http://www.wlox.com/story/22925515/hurricane-hunters-flying-two-storms-difficult-three-impossible

[Cyclenall]

Two words: This sucks. I was worried this would happen and I thought NOAA canceled the furloughs so the part about not being exempt from furloughs makes no sense. After the Moore EF5, they were cancelled by NOAA. NOAA should not be under sequestration whatsoever.

[Hurricaneman]

This is dangerous, if there are 2 major hurricane threatening the USA of the same strength one smaller and one larger the smaller one would not get recon and be seen as a cat1 in Dvorak and end up being a cat 4 causing mass death and destruction. I cant say everything I want to say because it would get political

[RL3AO]

This is dangerous, if there are 2 major hurricane threatening the USA of the same strength one smaller and one larger the smaller one would not get recon and be seen as a cat1 in Dvorak and end up being a cat 4 causing mass death and destruction. I cant say everything I want to say because it would get political

1. Whens the last time two majors threatened the US at the same time?
2. Theres enough technology from other sources now to know when something is a cat 4 and not be calling it a cat 1.
3. If there are multiple storms, maybe one only gets one flight per day instead of two or three.
4. Is it the end of the world if those tropical waves don't get two flights per day? I guess the NHC will have to use all the other tools at their disposal like they do with the EPac and the rest of the world does with their storms. (e.g. visible satellite, microwave satellite, surface obs, scattrometer data, ect).

[Alyono]

they handled 3 storms back in 2007 with Flossie by Hawaii, Dean in the Caribbean, and Erin striking Texas

[Yellow Evan]

This is dangerous, if there are 2 major hurricane threatening the USA of the same strength one smaller and one larger the smaller one would not get recon and be seen as a cat1 in Dvorak and end up being a cat 4 causing mass death and destruction. I cant say everything I want to say because it would get political

1. Whens the last time two majors threatened the US at the same time?
2. Theres enough technology from other sources now to know when something is a cat 4 and not be calling it a cat 1.
3. If there are multiple storms, maybe one only gets one flight per day instead of two or three.
4. Is it the end of the world if those tropical waves don't get two flights per day? I guess the NHC will have to use all the other tools at their disposal like they do with the EPac and the rest of the world does with their storms. (e.g. visible satellite, microwave satellite, surface obs, scattrometer data, ect).

I agree. It's not like satellite intensity estimates are very inaccurate. The WPAC sometimes has 2 or 3 storms threatening land with no recon and they get along fine.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

simply appalling

[Cyclenall]

I agree. It's not like satellite intensity estimates are very inaccurate.

I disagree, they are off ALL THE TIME! See my posts in the Epac Hurricane Carlotta thread from last year, after the storm. It can be over 30 knots off at times, other times alright.

[Hurricaneman]

I agree. It's not like satellite intensity estimates are very inaccurate.

I disagree, they are off ALL THE TIME! See my posts in the Epac Hurricane Carlotta thread from last year, after the storm. It can be over 30 knots off at times, other times alright.

especially with smaller systems

[WeatherEmperor]

I have a question. Would the Noaa Gulfstream jets be able to fly in place of the Hurricane Hunters...or would Noaa also suffer from furloughs? I know the Gulfstream jets cant penetrate into the eye of hurricanes like the Hurricane Hunters could but at least its better than having no planes flying at all.

Sent from my HTC EVO 4G LTE

[senorpepr]

Two words: This sucks. I was worried this would happen and I thought NOAA canceled the furloughs so the part about not being exempt from furloughs makes no sense. After the Moore EF5, they were cancelled by NOAA. NOAA should not be under sequestration whatsoever.

This really has nothing to do with NOAA. The WC-130Js out of Biloxi are USAF Reserves and are still subjected to sequestration.

As much as sequestration has hurt a lot of organizations--consider this: there are a lot of flying units that are getting little to no flying time. Also, much of the world has no hurricane/typhoon recon. Outside of the Atlantic/EPAC/CPAC, only Taiwan performs limited tropical cyclone surveillance flights, but no fix missions. The rest of the world has survived. We will too. We will weather this storm. It's not optimal, but we will adapt and overcome.

[Bartholemew Roberts]

This is why we need a fleet of hurricane hunting drones.

[Yellow Evan]

Two words: This sucks. I was worried this would happen and I thought NOAA canceled the furloughs so the part about not being exempt from furloughs makes no sense. After the Moore EF5, they were cancelled by NOAA. NOAA should not be under sequestration whatsoever.

This really has nothing to do with NOAA. The WC-130Js out of Biloxi are USAF Reserves and are still subjected to sequestration.

As much as sequestration has hurt a lot of organizations--consider this: there are a lot of flying units that are getting little to no flying time. Also, much of the world has no hurricane/typhoon recon. Outside of the Atlantic/EPAC/CPAC, only Taiwan performs limited tropical cyclone surveillance flights, but no fix missions. The rest of the world has survived. We will too. We will weather this storm. It's not optimal, but we will adapt and overcome.

Yea, it's really not the end of the world. And it's not like we are having no recon at all, just slightly less.

[Kingarabian]

So Col. LaFave, wheres our Recon again? Sending out recon over Dorian instead of Flossie appalls me.

[Yellow Evan]

So Col. LaFave, wheres our Recon again? Sending out recon over Dorian instead of Flossie appalls me.

I think it's cheaper to fly into Dorian than Flossie.

[Kingarabian]

So Col. LaFave, wheres our Recon again? Sending out recon over Dorian instead of Flossie appalls me.

I think it's cheaper to fly into Dorian than Flossie.

What about helping preserve human lives?

[Downdraft]

So Col. LaFave, wheres our Recon again? Sending out recon over Dorian instead of Flossie appalls me.

I think it's cheaper to fly into Dorian than Flossie.

What about helping preserve human lives?

It's not the Colonel's call which storms his group flies. They are tasked by the NHC.