NASA Monitoring Hurricane Matthew – Using a Drone

NASA Monitoring Hurricane Matthew – Using a Drone

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

NASA announced recently that it’s been using a drone to track Hurricane Matthew. The space agency said that the tool being used is a Global Hawk drone which flies over huge storm swirls near Florida’s northeast coast. The aircraft weighs nearly 15,000 pounds, has a wingspan of 140 feet, and can fly for 30-plus hours at over 60,000 feet, according to a U.S. Air Force fact sheet.

To capture weather data like temperature, air pressure, and humidity, the drone dropped several devices called dropsondes that collect information as they fall from the sky, NASA said. Small parachutes attached to the dropsondes keep them from breaking apart when they hit the ocean or ground at the end of their descent. NASA explained that the dropsondes can send weather data in real-time to the National Hurricane Center in Florida, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other organizations worldwide that forecast weather.

According to fortune.com, during previous hurricanes, like Hurricanes Emily and Dennis in 2005, NASA has flown single pilot planes like the ER-2 aircraft to collect weather data. Flying a drone over a major storm as opposed to an aircraft with a human pilot would presumably be safer and cheaper.