LAKELAND, Fla. — "Well... damn."
Those were the words of NOAA's Nick Underwood as he and his colleagues rode through the intense winds of Hurricane Milton.
The crew from NOAA's Aircraft Operations Center is one of the teams that flies through hurricanes to take weather observations that would otherwise be virtually impossible to obtain.
"Good God," Underwood exclaimed as their Lockheed WP-3D Orion N42RF aircraft violently bounced around in winds of at least 150 mph.
Hurricane hunters, as they are commonly referred to, fly through storms to record weather data. One of the most critical goals of the mission is to release dropsondes, which descend out of the plane and record data such as air pressure and wind speed. This data is then fed back to the National Hurricane Center where meteorologists use the data to update the storm's forecast path.
In a video recorded by Underwood and posted to X, the social media site formally referred to as Twitter, items in-flight can be seen falling off shelves and jumping out of pockets.
"Got to keep these pockets zipped," Underwood is heard saying after retrieving both his wallet and phone.
Underwood is a six-year veteran. He has been flying on behalf of NOAA since 2018.
Throughout all that experience, he equated his flight on Tuesday to his historic flight through Hurricane Ian.
"This is right up there with the Ian flight," he wrote on X. "Floor panels came up. Dropsondes broke. A message in the cabin."
Their mission on Tuesday through Milton recorded a pressure of 929 MB and a wind intensity of 130 knots, or just shy of 150 mph.
"Kermit," as the plane is nicknamed, flew out of Lakeland, Florida for Tuesday's mission. The plane landed safely in Mobile, Alabama after the mission.
Other crews, including those flown by the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the Air Force Reserve, are also flying missions through Milton.
The storm is also being observed from space: both by weather satellites and by astronauts on the International Space Station.
Astronaut Matthew Dominick, the commander of NASA's SpaceX Crew-8 mission, posted a video to X as the space station orbited over the storm. Dominick and his crew, who had been rescheduled to return to Earth, had their stay on the space station extended until after the storm. Mission managers were concerned impacts from the storm could disrupt their return home.