The Forecaster Brown Fan Club

I spent the last couple of weeks in October watching what could only be described as the Idiot's Guide to the Wikipedia entry on Hurricane Sandy, otherwise known as the Weather Channel (it was the only live channel I could find online).

Half of it involved presenters with an emotional age of 14 trying to get as close to the storm surge as they could, while Dr. Thang in Atlanta helpfully pointed out the eye of the storm every so often.

It left me wondering why India had fought so hard for a Cray XMP-24 all those decades ago when all they needed was a helicopter, a doppler, a satellite photo and a half-crazed adolescent with a death-wish.

Then I came across this page written by the imaginately named 'Forecaster Brown'. The post, dated '1100 AM EDT SAT OCT 27 2012' begins

"NOAA AND AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT HAVE BEEN 
SAMPLING THE CYCLONE THIS MORNING." 

It turns out the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) leads a more interesting life than the Weather Channel does. For one thing the NOAA has its own fleet of aircraft which they fly in tandem with a US Air Force squadron. While everyone else is grounding their aircraft and hunkering down for the storm, they fly right into it to do Sciency things like dropping Dropsondes into the storm, monitoring waves for wind speed and direction and collecting all the data that bring such meaning to Forecaster Brown's life. Here is a Google Earth screenshot of the recce missions flown during Hurricane Sandy and here's the guide that explains the different colors and icons. 

According to the Hurricane Hunters Association, the larger aircraft fly with a five-person crew - the pilot, the co-pilot, the navigator, an aerial reconnaissance weather officer (ARWO) and the weather loadmaster/dropsonde operator. The aircraft collects and several kinds of data, the main ones being Reconnaissance Code (RECCO) data which is weather information collected by an aircraft in flight; data from a descending dropsond (DROP) and which typically includes height, temperature, dew-point and  pressure; and vortex data (VDM).

Reading the NOAA advisories for Hurricane Sandy, I can see how it might be impossible to fill a 24-hour news cycle with it, and why the Weather Channel needs an army of people falling over each other trying to explain just how fucked we are. 

However, I think I still prefer the measured, thoughtful tone of Forecaster Brown. His last discussion of the NOAA advisory signs off with

"THANKS GO OUT TO THE CREWS OF THE AIR FORCE RESERVE AND NOAA 
HURRICANE HUNTERS FOR PROVIDING CRITICAL MEASUREMENTS IN AND AROUND 
SANDY DURING THE LAST SEVEN DAYS. THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER 
WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK THE LOCAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICES ACROSS 
THE COUNTRY THAT HAVE CONDUCTED SPECIAL RADIOSONDE RELEASES AS SANDY 
APPROACHED THE COAST."

Here's a little more about Forecaster Brown.