By KSN Chief Meteorologist Dave Freeman

September 2004 -- As I write this Hurricane Frances bears down on Florida, following close on the heels of Charley. It has already been a busy hurricane season--and we have several months to go. As I often joke, it's another great reason to live in Kansas!

Being a born and bred Midwesterner, the vast majority of my career has been spent tracking thousands of thunderstorms and hundreds of tornadoes. But, I have had the chance to tangle with two hurricanes up close and personal--Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina in 1989, and Hurricane Andrew, in the Gulf of Mexico in 1992.

I covered landfall of Hurricane Hugo along the coast of South Carolina. We chose Myrtle Beach as our location--Hugo's eye actually struck a bit further South. This did put us in the most dangerous Northwest quadrant of the storm--where the forward motion of the hurricane adds to the storm winds to make them even more powerful.

Several memories stand out in my mind from that experience. First, while the eye of Hugo was still well off shore, the bands of thunderstorms that precede the hurricane were already moving in. I did a live report during one of these storms and the rain was coming down so hard that I was choking--I couldn't get a breath! It was like standing in the shower and trying to talk with the water blasting you in the face!

Later that night, as the eye of the storm approached shore, we did another live report. By this time, the wind was really picking up and as I was doing my report, I could hear the tall Southern pine trees--nearly 2' in diameter at the base--cracking and popping as they swayed back and forth! I was ready for one of those to come crashing down on my head any moment. And, in fact, the next day we did see many of those trees that had been snapped off about 6-8 feet above the ground.

Hugo came ashore in the wee hours, and a few of us who had tried to catch some sleep before things got too bad were rolled out of our hotel rooms and told to stay in the interior hallway. The roar of the wind was phenomenal! And it took its toll. The next morning there was no power, no water, no phone, nothing. We stopped at a convenience store and tried to buy some food and it was an all-cash economy--no checks, no credit cards. It was very interesting to see life without all of the modern conveniences we are used to--but I wouldn't want to live that way all the time!

My second experience with a hurricane was a ride with the fabled USAF Reserve "Hurricane Hunters." These brave crews fly their HC-130 turboprop airplanes into the eye of hurricanes to take measurements that allow forecasters to really know what is going on, and make better forecasts. I managed to arrange a ride aboard a Hurricane Hunter that was assigned to penetrate Hurricane Andrew after it had already made mincemeat out of South Florida, and was now churning across the Gulf of Mexico. The question on everyone's mind was, "Is it strengthening again?"

We hopped on board and took off at midnight, reaching the hurricane at about 2AM. For the next 10 hours, we flew crisscross patterns across the eye of the storm, at about 10,000 feet altitude. To say this was not your average airplane ride was an understatement! It was pretty bouncy, but we were allowed to spend part of the ride in the cockpit, observing the crew in action. I remember that the rain was so incredibly heavy that I could hear it hitting the skin of the aircraft above the roar of the engines and with headphones on!

At another point, also still at night, the navigator/radar operator called out to the pilot urgently, telling him to turn to the right, "Right now!" I looked over at his radar screen and I could see a hook echo dead ahead--a warning sign of a possible tornado directly in our flight path! The pilot quickly steered us clear of that threat.

When daylight broke, we were treated to a stunning sight. As we punched through the eye wall of Andrew--the wall of powerful thunderstorms surrounding the eye of the hurricane--we suddenly came out into an area of blue skies and we could see all the way to the ocean surface two miles below us. But, even at that altitude, we could see the huge waves on the surface of the tormented ocean. Looking up, we could see the towering clouds forming a giant circular wall--and above that, stunning, deep blue sky. It was an unforgettable experience.

While in the eye, our mission was to drop instruments into the eye which measure conditions, and radio them back to the aircraft. The aircraft then beamed the information by satellite to the National Hurricane Center. On one pass through the eye, the instrument went bad, and we had an incredible view as the aircraft circled in the eye of the hurricane before deploying a second radiosonde. What an experience!

And, the reports that we made told forecasters that Andrew was, in fact, strengthening again, and that information helped folks on the Gulf Coast prepare for Andrew's second punch.

If you are interested, please visit the Photo Album on my website, where you can see some pictures from both of these experiences.

As you can tell, they certainly made deep impressions on me, and helped convinced me that living in Kansas is a pretty good deal!

Dave Freeman
KSN Chief Meteorologist
weatherlab@ksn.com