NASA On Air: NASA's Global Hawk Scans Hurricane (3/13/2014)

  • Released Thursday, March 13, 2014
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LEAD: NASA is using a special plane to help hurricane forecasters this summer.

This unmanned plane, Global Hawk, flies at 60,000 feet (twice the height of commercial planes)

It takes x-ray-like “cat- scans” of the inside of a hurricane: such as the towers of heavy rain that help energize storms.

Because it can stay up for 24 hours it can examine the entire hurricane, Head to toe.

TAG: Information will help forecasters determine why some hurricanes blow up from a minimal category one (1) storm to a devastating monster category 5 in less than a day. Especially critical when they approach landfall.

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Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

This page was originally published on Thursday, March 13, 2014.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:51 PM EDT.