Hurricane Hunters aircraft, crew visit D-M

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Jake Richmond
  • 355th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz. --  The sky was clear. The sun was shining. Sure, it was a little breezy, but why in the world was a WC-130J Hurricane Hunter aircraft landing on Davis-Monthan's runway May 21?

"I've been waiting 20 years to see it!" said Lt. Col. Barry Romitti, commander of D-M's 612th Support Squadron. It was he and his Airmen who worked with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron to bring the Hurricane Hunter crew here to enhance their professional partnership.

Although the 612th SPTS is housed within the 25th Operational Weather Squadron, it falls under a separate chain of command and has a different mission set. Weather professionals at the 612th are charged with providing forecasts for the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility, which includes much of the Caribbean Ocean.

Of course, the Caribbean is where a lot of tropical storm activity happens, so the 612th SPTS forecasters have the interesting distinction of providing weather support to fellow weather specialists - the Hurricane Hunter air crews. Before the WC-130J hits the skies, the crew gets a flight weather forecast from the 612th here at D-M.

Master Sgt. Randy Bynon, a dropsonde systems operator and loadmaster for the Hurricane Hunter crew who visited D-M, stressed the importance of safely avoiding bad weather...on their way to really, really bad weather.

"Ironically, weather is one of our biggest factors going to and from hurricanes, especially on take-off and landing," Sergeant Bynon said. "We're just as vulnerable as almost any other aircraft, and it's these folks who help us steer clear of the really bad stuff."

The 612th SPTS has several interesting operations, including flight weather support for border protection, counterdrug, disaster relief, and various intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions. But tropical storm season seems to bring out some extra zeal from the weather-inclined Airmen.

"I like that it gives our people a real live mission to do," Colonel Romitti said. "A lot of times we're training or exercising, but when we're handing out forecasts to the guys who are flying into the storms, it gets us out of our traditional military role. It's good to be a part of the bigger effort to help people in other walks of life."

Helping people is basically what the Hurricane Hunters do. The atmospheric data they gather while flying through the storm helps decision-makers on land decide how many people need to evacuate in advance of a hurricane. Accurate forecasts lead to increased credibility, which leads to more residents making the safe decision to vacate an area about to be hit by a devastating storm.

And while "better safe than sorry" might seem to be a good guiding principle when it comes to establishing evacuation orders, it's not quite that simple. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "reducing the length of coastline under hurricane warnings saves between $600,000 and $1 million per coastal mile in costs of evacuations and other preparedness actions."

Forecast a too-small impact area and it could mean people left in harm's way. Make the area too large and it's a multimillion-dollar mistake. It's a demanding job, and it's a focused group of Airmen that help make it happen.

For Colonel Romitti, the goal of the visit was to familiarize members of each team on each other's perspectives and thereby increase mission effectiveness.

"It was everything that's best about teaming up with other units," he said. "We got to meet the individual experts, and we all walked away better off because of the visit. It really brought home the collaborative effort it takes to pull off the huge responsibility that is hurricane forecasting."