All three of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s hurricane-hunting planes were grounded earlier this week due to technical problems as Idalia hit Florida, reports The Washington Post.
NOAA’s aircraft help confirm a storm’s location and strength and collect real-time scientific data needed to better forecast hurricanes.
The information collected by the planes is “extraordinarily valuable” for forecasting, said Steven Morey, an oceanographer at Florida A&M University. “If they don’t get quality data to assimilate in their analysis runs, then there’s going to be a degradation in the forecasts,” he told the Post.
Idalia made landfall in Florida Wednesday morning as a powerful Category 3 hurricane before weakening as it turned its fury on southeast Georgia.
Two planes were undergoing repairs as Idalia hit and the third, dubbed Miss Piggy, was sidelined, too, according to the Post. An Air Force plane asked to fly provided data on the storm instead.
“NOAA has numerous observing platforms on and in the ocean this season,” said Scott Smullen, an agency spokesman.
If the planes were unavailable earlier, the accuracy of the forecasts would have suffered, said one NOAA official.
“It’s like a World Cup soccer game, and you have one goalie, and you play him every moment of every game,” the person told the Post. “It’s a very high risk that he gets hurt, and the impact when he does that — you lose the World Cup.”
One former NOAA official said all three planes will have to be retired by 2030, “if not sooner.
“It really depends on how many flights they do. So if we have a couple active seasons, they’re going to hit their end of life a lot sooner,” the person told the Post.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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