The Hurricane Hunters

by Ivan Ray Tannehill

In addition, the experienced citizen prepares for hours when water, lights, and electric refrigeration will fail. He knows, too, that these storms have a central region, or eye, where it is calm or nearly so, and he does not make the often-fatal mistake of assuming that the storm is over when the calm suddenly succeeds the roaring gales. He wisely remains indoors and closes the openings on the other side of the house, for the first great gusts will come from a direction nearly opposite that of the most violent winds which preceded the center.

In the early thirties, the hurricane forecasts for the entire susceptible region were still being made in Washington, having been begun there in 1878. Weather reports were coming in season from observers at land stations in the West Indies, mostly by cable. From many places the cable messages went to Washington via Halifax. Ship’s weather messages came by radio to coastal stations on the Atlantic and Gulf, and from there to Washington by telegraph. Twice a day these reports were put on maps and isobars, and pressure centers (highs and lows) were drawn.

In general, the same system is used today. Arrows show the direction and force of the wind at each of many points; also the barometer reading, temperature, cloud data, and other facts are entered. Conditions in the upper air are shown at a few places where balloon soundings are made. As the map takes shape, it begins to show the vast sweep of the elements across the southern United States, Mexico, Central America, and all the region in and around the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic. In these southern regions, the trade winds, coming from the northeast and turning westward across the islands and the Caribbean, bring good weather to the edge of the belt of doldrums.

This is the lazy climate of the tropics, in the vast spaces where the bulge of the earth near the Equator seems to give things the appearance of a view through a magnifying glass. In the distant scene, islands are set off by glistening clouds hanging from mountain tops. White towers of thundery clouds push upward here and there over the sea, in startling contrast to the blue of the sky and water. Nature seems to be at peace but the trained weather observer may see and measure things that are disturbing to the weather forecasters when put together on a weather map of regions extending far beyond any single observer’s horizon.

Here and there in this atmosphere that seems so peaceful an eddy forms and drifts westward in the grand sweep of the upper air across these southern latitudes. These temporary swirls in the atmosphere, some of which are called “easterly waves,” are marked by a wave-like form, drifting from the east. The wind turns a little, the barometer falls slightly, the clouds increase temporarily, but nothing serious happens and the eddy passes as better weather resumes. This goes on day after day and week after week, but during the hurricane season the storm hunters are always on the alert.

All this work of charting the weather day by day and week by week is not wasted if no hurricane develops. Planes take off every day from southern and eastern airports, carrying passengers to Bermuda, Nassau, Trinidad, Cuba, Jamaica, Mexico, and Central and South America. The crews stop at the weather office to pick up reports of wind and weather for their routes and at destination. The weather over these vast expanses of water surface is reported and predicted also for ships at sea. And when a storm begins to develop, ships and planes are among the first to be notified.

Sooner or later, one of these swirling waves shows a definite center of low pressure, with winds blowing counterclockwise around it. Now the modern drama of the hurricane begins. In the region where these ominous winds are charted, radio messages from headquarters ask for reports from ships—every hour, if possible—and weather offices on islands are asked to make special balloon soundings of the upper air and send reports at frequent intervals. Warnings go out to vessels in the path of the storm as it picks up force. Alert storm hunters in Cuba and other countries are contacted to discuss the prospects, to furnish more frequent reports, and to assist in warning the populations on the islands.

On the coast of the United States, excitement is in the air. Conversations in the street, offices, stores, homes, everywhere, turn to the incipient hurricane, and become more insistent as the big winds draw nearer. And finally the hour comes when precautions are necessary. By this time, business in the threatened area is at a standstill. The situation is like that during world-series baseball games and almost as dramatic as that which follows a declaration of war. Few people have their minds on business. At this point, the reports of storm hunters and the decisions of forecasters involve the immediate plans of hundreds of thousands of people, large costs for protection of property, and the safety of human life along shore and in small craft on the water.

Some of the men and women who came down to the weather and radio offices this morning know now that they will not go home tonight. There will be an increasing volume of weather reports, the rattle of teletypewriters will become more insistent, the radio receivers will be guarded by alert men growing weary toward morning, planes will be evacuated from airports in the threatened region and flown back into the interior, and the businessman will go home early and get out the frames he uses to board up the windows when a hurricane is predicted. The Navy may take battleships and cruisers out of a threatened harbor, so that their officers will have room to maneuver.

Under these dramatic conditions the hurricane comes toward land with good weather in advance—sunny by day and clear at night. The native fears the telltale booming of the surf and feels concerned about the fitful northeast breezes. In time there are lofty, thin clouds, spreading across the sky in wisps or “mares’ tails” of cirrus—composed of ice crystals in the high cold atmosphere far above the heated surface of the subtropics. A thin veil forms over the sky. At the end of the day, red rays of the lowering sun cast a weird crimson color into the cloud veil, reflecting a scarlet hue over the landscape and the sea. For a few minutes the earth seems to be on fire. To the visitor, it is a beautiful sunset. To the native, it is alarming, and in some parts of the Caribbean it is terrifying as an omen of the displeasure of the storm gods. In these dramatic situations the head forecaster makes his decision.