Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 15 hours ago
Jason Sippel, PhD, Meteorologist at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory
Hurricane hunter missions are an increasingly vital part of NOAA operations. These aircraft have been regularly flying into tropical cyclones (TCs) since the 1960s, and the missions have become more advanced and vital to NOAA operations since that time. Data from the missions started being ingested into numerical weather prediction models in the early 1980s, and it has proven to substantially improve model forecasts of tropical cyclones TCs. The positive impacts of the data have led to the procurement of additional NOAA hurricane hunters as well as a concerted effort to ingest as much of the data as possible into NOAA weather models.
NOAA's Hurricane Field Program (HFP) is a cornerstone of the NOAA hurricane hunter effort. The program is led by scientists from the Hurricane Research Division at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in collaboration with the Cooperative Institute For Marine And Atmospheric Studies and Northern Gulf Institute. They partner with NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center, who maintain and operate NOAA’s WP-3D and Gulfstream IV-SP (G-IV) Hurricane Hunter aircraft, and NCEP’s National Hurricane Center and Environmental Modeling Center, who task airborne missions to gather data used by forecasters for analysis and forecasting and for ingest into operational numerical weather prediction models. They also partner with NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service for instrument development and evaluation. The goal of the HFP is to improve TC forecasts using an integrated approach of analyzing observations from aircraft, initializing and evaluating forecast models with those observations, and developing new airborne instrumentation and observing strategies targeted at filling observing gaps and maximizing the data’s impact in model forecasts.
This talk reviews the history of hurricane hunters and highlights recent HFP contributions toward improved TC understanding and prediction. In particular, it describes how the HFP addresses high-priority forecast challenges, summarizes recent collaborations, describes advancements in observing systems monitoring structure and intensity, as well as in assimilation of aircraft data into operational models, and emphasizes key advances in understanding of TC processes, particularly those that lead to rapid intensification. The talk concludes with a look forward to where the hurricane hunter effort is heading at NOAA, specifically addressing the optimal integration of crewed aircraft with uncrewed systems.
Jason Sippel, PhD, Meteorologist at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory
Hurricane hunter missions are an increasingly vital part of NOAA operations. These aircraft have been regularly flying into tropical cyclones (TCs) since the 1960s, and the missions have become more advanced and vital to NOAA operations since that time. Data from the missions started being ingested into numerical weather prediction models in the early 1980s, and it has proven to substantially improve model forecasts of tropical cyclones TCs. The positive impacts of the data have led to the procurement of additional NOAA hurricane hunters as well as a concerted effort to ingest as much of the data as possible into NOAA weather models.
NOAA's Hurricane Field Program (HFP) is a cornerstone of the NOAA hurricane hunter effort. The program is led by scientists from the Hurricane Research Division at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in collaboration with the Cooperative Institute For Marine And Atmospheric Studies and Northern Gulf Institute. They partner with NOAA’s Aircraft Operations Center, who maintain and operate NOAA’s WP-3D and Gulfstream IV-SP (G-IV) Hurricane Hunter aircraft, and NCEP’s National Hurricane Center and Environmental Modeling Center, who task airborne missions to gather data used by forecasters for analysis and forecasting and for ingest into operational numerical weather prediction models. They also partner with NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service for instrument development and evaluation. The goal of the HFP is to improve TC forecasts using an integrated approach of analyzing observations from aircraft, initializing and evaluating forecast models with those observations, and developing new airborne instrumentation and observing strategies targeted at filling observing gaps and maximizing the data’s impact in model forecasts.
This talk reviews the history of hurricane hunters and highlights recent HFP contributions toward improved TC understanding and prediction. In particular, it describes how the HFP addresses high-priority forecast challenges, summarizes recent collaborations, describes advancements in observing systems monitoring structure and intensity, as well as in assimilation of aircraft data into operational models, and emphasizes key advances in understanding of TC processes, particularly those that lead to rapid intensification. The talk concludes with a look forward to where the hurricane hunter effort is heading at NOAA, specifically addressing the optimal integration of crewed aircraft with uncrewed systems.
