Hurricane Francine formed in the Gulf of Mexico in September 2024
NASA Earth Observatory image by Wanmei Liang, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS)
On 10 September, a US Navy P-3 Orion aircraft chased down Hurricane Francine, then building strength in the Gulf of Mexico. As the plane flew low over the water, helmeted crewmembers known as “warlocks” heaved more than a dozen scientific buoys out of an open door. This was the latest mission in a program to improve hurricane forecasts by collecting real-time data at the tumultuous interface of…