Life of a Hurricane Rider

ByABC News
July 18, 2000, 3:04 PM

July 19, 2000 -- Jim Carswell knows better than most that science doesnt have to be boring.

Carswell is one of those goofy folks who spend part of their time flying through hurricanes in airplanes built nearly three decades ago. Carswell is an electrical engineer at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and he says the trip is a gas.

It beats any amusement park ride Ive ever been on, says Carswell, who likens the experience to whipping around on one of those spinning carnival rides, mounted on a roller-coaster.

Spinning for Science

But he doesnt do it for the thrills. In this day of satellite surveillance and remotely operated sensors, theres still no substitute for flying directly through a hurricane and collecting data that could save lives.

This is Carswells fourth season working with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administrations Hurricane Research Division, and he has made at least 50 flights through hurricanes. That includes last years monster, Hurricane Floyd, the most deadly storm to hit the eastern seaboard since 1972. Hurricane Floyd killed 57 people and dumped 15 inches of rain in 24 hours on Wilmington, N.C.

In recent years scientists at the National Hurricane Center have become amazingly adroit at predicting the course of hurricanes.

Last year they predicted several days in advance that Floyd would turn north on the 13th of September, before hitting Florida, and it did just that, Carswell says.

But scientists have been less successful at predicting the intensity of the storm, or how far out from the eye hurricane winds will occur, and that has raised serious problems in defining which areas of the coastline will be severely affected.

Knowing When to Cry Wolf

The intensity of Floyd was so unclear that all of the East Coast of Florida was put under warning, and people had to evacuate. Thats not only costly, it raises the specter of yelling wolf too often, causing residents to ignore future warnings to their considerable peril.