NASA Drones Search For Source Of El Niño Storms
MOUNTAIN VIEW (CBS SF) – Storm chasers have become a fixture when it comes to tracking severe weather across the plains, but now over the Pacific NASA is using 21st Century drones for the same task when it comes to El Nino.
Robbie Hood, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Unmanned Aircraft Systems, said the flights that began on Feb. 12th will target storms churning to life in the Pacific.
"How do you use Global Hawks (drones) and actually chase storms?" Hood said in a release. "That's what we are looking at with these missions."
Based at NASA's Armstrong Flight Center located at Edwards Air Force Base, the drones will fly 4-to-6 24-hour mission at 60,000 feet in February to collected detail meteorological measurements from a region in the Pacific known to be the origination point of El Nino storms.
NASA officials said they hope the information will lead to better forecasting of the damaging storms in the future.
"It gives us a chance to get ahead of the storm," said Robert Webb, the director of the Physical Science Division of the Office of Ocean and Atmospheric Research for NOAA.
The Global Hawk drone is 44-foot-long and has a wingspan of more than 116 feet, a height of 15 feet, and a gross takeoff weight of 26,750 pounds including a 1,500-pound payload capability.
The drone contains tools that look like paper tubes that gather temperature, moisture and wind speed and direction. They also contained Doppler radar and ozone measuring devices.
