Imagine flying into a hurricane! Most people might think that would be a bit extreme. However, flying directly into monster storms is business as usual for Robbie Hood. It"ls her commute to her science laboratory. Robbie Hood is a NASA scientist who studies hurricanes. Unlike her colleagues with both feet on the ground, she doesn't work within the confines of a laboratory with four walls. Robbie works in the field—actually, she works in the air.

Her mission is to fly into the spiral storm clouds of hurricanes. There, using onboard instruments and electronic packages dropped into the storm, she collects and studies weather data.

 

Of special interest to Robbie is the rain that falls in these storms. She uses the data she collects to analyze the strength of weather events. Gaining a better understanding of these storms, she can assist other forecasters in making more accurate predictions about hurricanes.

Whether flying missions from Costa Rica, Cape Verde, or airstrips in the Caribbean, Robbie compares the data she and her team collect with data collected by NASA's Earth Observing System of satellites. Satellites such as Aqua have instruments that use different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum to measure water and water vapor. Robbie uses the satellite data to tell how much water is in a particular region of the storm. To obtain more detail, she then compares satellite data with data from the same instruments onboard the research flights. The comparison allows her to better calibrate the satellite’s data, which can then provide more reliable information, even when no plane is available to fly into a storm.

Strap in for a mission to explore the dynamics of air and water. In this mission you'll investigate the structure of air, the water cycle, and what clouds can tell us about weather.