Word: ivans
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More than 40 people are thought to have died during Ivan's terrifying assault on the U.S., and many more might have died had people not taken the warnings issued by forecasters so seriously. For this, says Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center, part of the credit goes to aerial reconnaissance and surveillance missions similar to the one I'm on. The reams of data collected by each flight--"enough to choke a horse on," is how Mayfield puts it--have increased the credibility of hurricane landfall projections, and that, in turn, has prompted more people to evacuate...
...graphs), which measure the temperature of the water column. The chief weakness of hurricane- intensity forecasts, Cione believes, is the lack of information about the state of the ocean as a storm churns through. Warm water, after all, provides the fuel that supplies a hurricane with energy, and in Ivan's case, Cione is surprised to find that the water in this region of the Gulf is not as warm as he thought, suggesting that Ivan might weaken before hitting land--which, as it turns...
...makes its sixth pass through the tumult of the eyewall, Cione begins to look a little pale. "How many more are we going to make?" he groans. I too am savoring the calm as the plane traverses the eye. Ivan's is a big eye, some 40 miles across, and a mean-looking one too, occluded by glowering clouds. Jack Parrish, the senior NOAA scientist in charge, thinks some of these may be half-digested remnants of an earlier eyewall around which Ivan has regrouped. Big hurricanes sometimes form concentric eyewalls, he says, and that makes flying through them...
...long last a loud whoosh announces the fall of the last dropwindsonde. Over the radio, Parrish's voice signals the end of the mission. By now, even Parrish is getting weary of the nine-hour flights that have been taking off daily for eight days running, ever since Ivan blew up into a hurricane, not far from St. Croix. Attacked by fierce winds and savage rains, NOAA's fleet of hurricane hunters (two WP-3Ds and a Gulfstream IV) is showing signs of stress as well. The protective coating on the stabilizer of the plane I'm riding...
...over. Even as Ivan's tattered remnants saturated the Southeast with flooding rains, Jeanne was menacing the Dominican Republic, and a storm called Karl was gathering force in the Atlantic. NOAA's hurricane hunters are not going to get much rest just yet, it seems, and they may not until Nov. 30, when the all-too-memorable 2004 hurricane season finally recedes into history. With reporting by Ruth Laney/Baton Rouge, Tim Padgett/Miami, Michael Peltier/Tallahassee and Frank Sikora/Birmingham...