Hurricane daredevils.

Valerie Schmid straps herself into the seat of an Air Force cargo plane. She and her crew know they're in for a rocky ride. That's their job. They're members of the Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissane Squadron--the fearless "Hurricane Hunters." Their mission? To fly through Earth's most destructive storms to collect weather data that could save thousands of lives.

As the crew enters a storm, like hurricane Erin, which struck Florida last August, "the plane becomes a bucking bronco," says meteorologist (weather scientist) Schmid. But she and the other Hurricane Hunters are ready. Each year, they log some 400 hours of flight time, particularly during "hurricane season," which runs from June through November.

During these months, tropical oceans heat up and cause lots of ocean water to evaporate, Schmid explains. As the warm, humid air rises, more warm, moist air from all around rushes in to replace it (see diagram, p. 18). The air begins to spin. When the spinning winds reach speeds of 119 to 250 kph (74 to 155 mph), a hurricane is born.

STALKING A STORM

"As soon as there's a suspicious blob of clouds out there," says Schmid, "we'll start to fly." They don't exactly see the clouds. The "sighting" comes from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Florida, which receives satellite reports of a storm brewing over the tropical seas. Satellite images give forecasters some information about the storm's size and movement, says NHC hurricane specialist Miles Lawrence. But "when we want to know details about what's going on inside the hurricane--how strong it is, where it's located--the Hurricane Hunters get that precise information," Lawrence says.

On board the aircraft, Schmid and five other crew members navigate the plane and collect instant weather data, which they transmit to scientists at the NHC.

BELLY OF THE BEAST

"As you're flying toward the storm," Schmid says, "the sky starts to darken." The sea below looks green as the increasing winds chum up high waves. Soon thick clouds envelop the plane.

The Hurricane Hunters keep their eyes on readings from the plane's weather instruments, which measure wind speeds, humidity, temperature, and air pressure. Getting up-to-the-second air-pressure readings is particularly important, Schmid says. The lower the pressure, the more severe the hurricane. That's because air flows rapidly from high-pressure areas to the low-pressure zone at the storm's center. The rushing air creates more powerful winds.

The closer the Hurricane Hunters get to the storm's low-pressure core, the more violent the storm gets. In the eyewall, the thick ring of clouds that swirls around the hurricane's open center, the crew experiences the storm's worst weather: strong thunderstorms and turbulent winds. So much rain pounds the aircraft, "it's almost like you're in a submarine all of a sudden," says Schmid.

Lightning flashes all around. "At least one of our airplanes gets hit every year," says Hurricane Hunter pilot Bob Petersen. "It sounds like a great big hand has come down and slapped you."

The daredevils know their missions can be dangerous--even deadly. In 1955, a crew of nine U.S. Navy Hurricane Hunters and two journalists went down in the Caribbean Sea while flying through Hurricane Janet. And 16 other crew members have died while flying in typhoons (what hurricanes are called in the western Pacific Ocean).

DANGER ZONE

Do Schmid and her crew get scared? "Normally you're just so busy that you're not thinking this might be dangerous," she says. Still, the Hunters keep everything in the plane tied down. And they remain strapped in their seats--using headsets to communicate with one another above the din of crashing rain, howling wind, and the plane's roaring turboprop engines.

"You ride [the eyewall] out," says Schmid. "It takes a couple of minutes to punch through [to the eye, the hurricane's calm center]. All of a sudden the rain stops. It's quiet and you break out into sunlight--or at night you might see the moon."

Some say being in the eye of a hurricane is like standing in the center of a large football stadium with blue sky overhead. The clouds swirl all around like screaming fans in the stands. "It's awesome," Schmid says.

But she knows the eye's tranquillity offers a false sense of calm, because the only way out is the way they came in--through the turbulent eyewall on the other side of the storm.

To get the full picture of a hurricane, the crew makes three to six trips back and forth through the eye on each 10- to 12-hour mission. After a full day of flying, Schmid and the other Hurricane Hunters touch down safely at their base near Biloxi, Mississippi, or at another base away from the storm's path. Exhausted but relieved, they know their weather readings enable people on shore to get ready for the coming storm.

And when the next mysterious blob of clouds starts to stir over the tropics, Schmid and the other Hurricane Hunters will take to the skies again. Says Schmid, "I can't imagine ever doing anything else."