Jeanne Sends Hurricane Hunters Home

Air Force Reserve Command's Hurricane Hunters are being hunted again. This time "Jeanne" is chasing them out of Homestead Air Reserve Base (FL) and forcing them to return to Keesler Air Force Base (MS).

About 120 reservists, 15 WC-130 Hercules weather reconnaissance aircraft and three C-130 Hercules aircraft from the 403rd Wing moved to Homestead on Sept. 13 when Hurricane Ivan threatened the Gulf Coast and Keesler AFB.

It was fortuitous that we were able to track both storms from one base, said Lt. Col. Douglas Lipscombe, a weather reconnaissance officer with the wing's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron. Now we have to get off Homestead and go home to Keesler. We've been in communication with people at Keesler and should have all of our birds back home by Sept. 18.

The Hurricane Hunters flew their last Hurricane Ivan mission early Sept. 16.

The crew followed the storm right up to the beach (near Gulf Shores, Ala.) and stopped because we don't fly over land, the colonel said.

The reservists flew one mission Sept. 14 tracking Tropical Storm Jeanne. The next day they started scheduling two flights and will go to three flights a day after the storm passes the Bahamas.

This is what we do every hurricane season, Colonel Lipscombe said. It's equivalent to six to 10 operational readiness inspection deployments a year. A three-ship deployment with operators, maintainers and staff -- that's our life. We're used to it. Our deployments may be short term, but we make many of them per year.

Officials at the National Hurricane Center in Miami forecasted an above-average storm year in 2004.

All indications point to this year living up to the forecast, Colonel Lipscombe said. We will have to wait until the end of the season to know if this is a record-setting year.

Colonel Lipscombe said hurricane seasons run in 30- to 40-year cycles.

"We are in a busy cycle," he said.

FMI: www.aoc.noaa.gov