Tim Mavor, MS ’97/PhD, says that flying into the eye of a hurricane is “like the best roller coaster ride ever.” In the past two years, he’s had two of these rides—hurricanes Isabel and Isador—as he tries to better understand what makes these storms tick.

Mavor works for STG Inc., a provider of information technology support services in applied engineering and other scientific fields. Currently, he is on contract with the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS), which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

At NESDIS’ Camp Springs, Md., office, Mavor develops satellite-retrieval algorithms, which are computational methods that relate information retrieved from satellites to various environmental phenomena. In one project, he and his NOAA colleagues are developing algorithms that calculate the speed and direction of the winds that occur on the ocean’s surface based upon the measurements of surface roughness by satellites that receive microwave radiation emitted from the atmosphere and the ocean, regardless of clouds or light levels.

Since wind patterns that occur in high-wind conditions are difficult to retrieve by satellites, Mavor says, researchers also must go out in the field and collect data during hurricanes and in areas where they know high winds occur to validate their algorithms.”

During the height of the hurricane season—from mid-August through October—Mavor keeps an eye on disturbances in the eastern Atlantic Ocean by attending National Weather Service briefings, visiting the web site of the National Hurricane Center and even watching The Weather Channel each evening at home.

“Once a disturbance reaches tropical storm status, I start paying closer attention,” Mavor says. “because at that point, I know that I am just one step away from leaving my family and flying into the eye of a hurricane.”

In fall 2003, NOAA scientists began making flights into the eye of Hurricane Isabel almost a week before the storm made landfall on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. As Mavor watched the storm approach the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, with sustained winds of approximately 100 miles per hour, he packed his bags and told his wife, Robbin, that he would be leaving shortly.

It wasn’t long before he was on his way to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla., home base for NOAA’s two Lockheed WP-3D Orions—the specially equipped planes used for these missions. By 8 the next morning, he was in the air, heading for the eye of Isabel.

The initial approach to a hurricane is quite uneventful, Mavor says. “Most of the time, you’re walking around and grabbing a sandwich or a soda,” he says. “You may not even realize when you get to the edge of the hurricane, because the winds are not yet hurricane force.

“You start noticing the high clouds that are associated with the storm from several hundred miles away. But, these clouds really don’t look much different from those you see on any other plane flight,” he explains.

Once the plane enters the hurricane, Mavor is strapped into his seat with a shoulder harness, and he begins to monitor the constant stream of data coming from the specialized instruments that have been installed for these flights, as well as the images from the plane’s radar.

“The radar images are just like the ones you might see if you are sitting in your living room watching The Weather Channel,” Mavor says. “It will show you where the bands of heavy rain are, which typically are where the strongest winds occur.”

Mavor says that being inside a hurricane is like being inside “an envelope of gray” because it’s hard to see anything at all. The ocean’s surface is only visible if the plane descends, he says, and the turbulence becomes strongest just outside the eye because the eye itself is very calm and clear.

The plane typically does not fly through a hurricane from edge-to-edge, because the scientists are more interested in what is happening just outside the hurricane’s eye. “The flight track basically looks like a figure four,” Mavor says. “We’ll make three or four of these patterns during each flight so that we cross a particular spot maybe three or four times. Each of these patterns is 30 to 60 miles long and takes about an hour.”

Frightening? “I haven’t been scared once,” he says, noting that the radar images let him know when he will be bounced around. “When I was flying through Isabel, I was more worried about my family on the ground because, at that point, we didn’t know where the storm was going to make landfall.”

Hurricane hunting was far from Mavor’s thoughts as he was completing his research for his doctorate in oceanography at the College of Marine Studies (CMS). His research required hours of work in the Environmental Fluids Laboratory conducting experiments that would help him understand how the rotation of the Earth affects the discharge of low-salinity river water into the coastal ocean.

However, Mavor says that laboratory work gave him the insight that is critical to understanding the various physical processes he views with airborne and satellite instruments. “My knowledge from CMS helps me interpret what I see in the satellite data,” he explains.

He credits his adviser, Pablo Huq, associate professor of physical ocean science and engineering, and his Ph.D. committee with giving him a wide range of opportunities to “get his hands and feet wet.” Just as important, he says, were the frequent informal discussions with his fellow grad students who provided him with a diversity of ideas. “The ‘Ph’ does stand for ‘philosophy,’ and it was always nice to hear someone else’s take on any particular issue—scientific or otherwise,” he says.

This past season, some NOAA forecasters were able to see the data that the scientists collect in the air on a one-second delay. This capability may soon allow forecasters to update their models in a more timely fashion, making their next prediction that much more accurate.

“Minimizing the property damage done by hurricanes probably will always be a problem,” Mavor says. “On the other hand, loss of life to a hurricane certainly should be diminished as we get better and better at predicting the path and intensity of these devastating storms.”