Video: The Hurricane Hunters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are perhaps the ballsiest pilots on this terrifying and vengeful planet.
For the last few days they have been flying recon missions into category 3 Hurricane Matthew to collect data, and post some incredible videos to Twitter. Unsurprisingly, the pilots described the flight as “turbulent”.
Pilot Jim Van Fleet also posted some excerpts from his flight into the eye of Matthew yesterday. Although the planes NOAA uses are specially designed for this type of work, the amount of force on those propellers is still deeply concerning.
Flying through #Eye of #Matthew 5 times. Can see eye on Radar, finally see out window about 1:30 in. @NOAA_HurrHunter @CBSNews @spann #flwx pic.twitter.com/GiwvM653Mv
— Jim Van Fleet (@JamesVanFleet) October 6, 2016
Flying with @NOAA_HurrHunter in to #Hurricane #Matthew #Eye from the cockpit jump seat #NOAA43 #Florida #flwx More videos shortly. pic.twitter.com/06bZeS0srQ
— Jim Van Fleet (@JamesVanFleet) October 6, 2016
If this impassioned plea from The Weather Channel didn’t convince people to evacuate, maybe these videos from inside the hurricane will.