Puerto Rico’s public safety minister issued a blunt warning to residents on Tuesday as Category 5 Hurricane Maria plows towards the region, saying there are two options -- evacuate or die.
While thousands are scrambling to avoid the powerful storm, a team of U.S. researchers is jetting into the middle of Maria to gather critical data to predict its movement. The storm is expected to directly hit Puerto Rico, an unincorporated U.S. territory, on Wednesday.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Flight Director Richard Henning is gathering a detailed picture of the weather systems in the upper atmosphere surrounding the storm on board a scientifically modified business jet. He and his crew expect to fly directly over Maria on Monday as it continues to gather strength.
The NOAA’s Gulfstream IV-SP jet will sprinkle the storm with dropsondes -- aerially-deployed instruments on parachutes that measure vertical profiles of pressure, temperature, and humidity as they fall. They’re also equipped with GPS to read wind direction and speed.
That data is fed into computer models designed to forecast and track storms like Maria.
“It’s sort of the opposite of a weather balloon. A weather balloon goes up. These are dropped from the bottom of the aircraft,” Henning told CTV News Channel from the aircraft. “They are transmitting data the whole time back to the aircraft, really critical pieces of information.”
Put another way, it’s a bit like the plot of the 1996 action film “Twister,” where storm chasers release a swarm of data-hungry sensors into tornados to measure how they function. The NOAA uses jets to deliver the goods rather than a pickup truck.
The Gulfstream’s tail Doppler radar also allows forecasters to map steering currents that influence Maria’s movement.
The flight departed from Tampa, Fla., and travelled over the Bahamas, through the Caribbean, over Maria’s eye, and then on to Barbados. Henning calls the mission a “controlled risk” that requires a cautious approach. He expects the ride over top of the storm will be a choppy one.
“A hurricane is like a fireplace. (At) the top of the storm, were in the chimney, what we call the outflow of the hurricane. It can get very turbulent up there,” Henning said.
Maria has already demonstrated its destructive power after smashing into Dominica. An official from the Caribbean island estimated 70 per cent of homes are without their roofs, and said there have been unconfirmed reports of deaths.
Henning said Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are directly in Maria’s path, and dropping pressure at the centre of the storm is a sign it will continue to gain strength. Puerto Rico’s mountainous terrain could also amplify Maria powerful winds, he warned.
“The higher you go up in elevation, the stronger the winds are going to be,” he said. “There will be winds in excess of 200 miles per hour (321 kilometres per hour) across large portions of Puerto Rico when the storm makes landfall.”
With files from The Associated Press
