Robot Sails Into The Heart of Hurricane Fiona—And What An Epic Storm It Captures
Ever wondered what the heart of a Cat 4 hurricane looks like?
A team from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Saildrone sent a robot into Hurricane Fiona, a storm that formed in Puerto Rico and is currently on its way to Canada’s east coast.
The 23-foot-long robot, named SD 1078, is a catamaran-style boat with a sail and a solar panel attached to it.
Take a look at Category 4 #HurricaneFiona from a @saildrone point of view! 🌀
— NOAA Research (@NOAAResearch) September 23, 2022
Watch the #saildrone battle 50 ft waves & over 100 mph winds as it collects critical #ocean #data that will help #scientists better understand the physical processes of #hurricanes@NOAA @NOAA_AOML pic.twitter.com/yZhSFvHREU
Once inside the storm, the drone reached speeds of 39.7 mph, and it even rode a 55-foot high wave as it battled winds with a high of 100 mph as it met with the wind eyewall—or where winds are the strongest.
The footage it caught from this was a whirring display of nature’s strength as the waves, wind, and rain tested the robot to its limits.
SD 1078 was the fourth drone of seven drones out in the Atlantic ocean to come into contact with Hurricane Fiona where the previous three were located; Fiona was just a tropical storm and had not grown in strength yet.
The primary purpose of this project was not to give us incredible footage of what the inside of a storm looks like. Saildrone presents data to NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory (PMEL) and Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) to better understand and avoid disasters.
[via Interesting Engineering and Mashable, cover image via Saildrone]
