Naval Academy Midshipmen 1st Class Elliot Hoy and Ian Park spent their third summer training block flying with the Hurricane Hunters of the U.S. Air Force 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (WRS) as part of the Oceanography Department’s TROPIC (Training and Research in Oceanic and Atmospheric Processes in Tropical Cyclones) internship program.
Based out of Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss., the Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd WRS fly weather reconnaissance missions into tropical storms and hurricanes over the western Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico to assist the National Hurricane Center in providing accurate hurricane track and intensity forecasts.
The TROPIC internship is part of a national effort to help the National Hurricane Center increase the accuracy of hurricane forecasts by incorporating ocean data from beneath tropical systems into air-ocean coupled weather prediction models. The role of the academy’s TROPIC team was to collect, process, quality control and disseminate the ocean data.
At the 53rd, the midshipmen alternated between roles in the air and on the ground. In the air onboard the squadron’s WC-130Js, the mids collected, processed and quality controlled data from ocean sensors then transmitted the data to the ground station. On the ground, the mids performed a second quality control check and then sent the data to the Naval Oceanographic Office and National Centers for Environmental Prediction for incorporation into weather prediction models.
In addition to joining the flight operations schedule, the mids also provided morning weather briefs to the duty and weather sections on non-flying days. Integrating into the daily squadron operations and leading the ocean data collection effort provided the mids with a unique summer training experience.
“This internship gave me a great understanding of the culture and operations of both the Navy METOC (meteorological and oceanographic) community and Air Force squadrons,” said Park.
During the three-week training block, Park and Hoy flew three ferry flights, two training flights and five operational missions into Tropical Storm Don over the Gulf of Mexico and Tropical Storm Emily over the eastern Caribbean Sea. The flights for TS Don were based out of Keesler Air Force Base, but for the flights into TS Emily, the mids forward deployed with the 53rd WRS to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
While they had plenty to do in preparing and executing the ocean portion of these weather reconnaissance missions, these oceanography majors also found time to explore the island of St. Croix.
While the mids’ focus was primarily on equipment operation and data collection during this summer phase of the TROPIC program, their attention will shift during the upcoming academic year to research and analyzing the ocean data. Both midshipmen will base their capstone research projects on their experiences in the TROPIC field program as they seek to better understand the correlation between ocean heat content and hurricane intensity. Their overall goal is to gather and analyze ocean data to better understand the role of the ocean in hurricane development.
“TROPIC gives midshipmen a unique chance to work with the Air Force on real-world operations and produce a useful product at the same time,” Hoy said. “Midshipmen rarely get a chance to provide a service that would otherwise be unavailable without them. The data we produced was actually used to improve the leading coupled models that scientists are using around the world.”
