As residents from Anguilla to Florida batten down the hatches for what promises to be a major storm, hurricane hunters from the Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the Air Force Reserve, based out of Biloxi, MS, flew right into the eye of Irma and it was all recorded on an epic video. Per WKRG:
For the first time since Hurricane Irma formed in the Atlantic Ocean, we are getting our first look at the tropical system. On Sunday, Hurricane Hunters, which is the Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the Air Force Reserve, flew into the storm for the first time.
They posted the video of the flight to their Twitter page and the crew, which is based out of Biloxi, Miss., said that additional flights will continue Monday.
The video shows a smooth flight until things get bumpy when they near the storm. The video then goes completely white as they go through the eye of the storm.
For penetrating the eye of Irma, the Hurricane Hunters used a WP-3D Orion aircraft. The squadron has two WP-3D that are known as ‘Kermit’ and ‘Miss Piggy’.
As we noted earlier (for more details see: Florida Declares State Of Emergency As Category 4 Hurricane Irma Barrels Straight For Miami), with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, Hurricane Irma has been upgraded to a major Cat-4 storm prompting governors from Puerto Rico to Florida to preemptively declare a state of emergency.