The Air Force Reserve 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron is based at Keesler Air Force Base near Biloxi, Mississippi. However, since 1995, they have had busy seasons. Aircraft provide unique work platforms to NOAA's scientists, collecting environmental, geographic, and atmospheric data essential to NOAA hurricane, tornado, and cyclone research. They provide aerial support of coastal and aeronautical charting, as well as aerial surveys for hydrologic research and marine mammal population prediction. Reconnaissance aircraft are sent out to monitor tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic Ocean and in the central Pacific Ocean when Hawaii is threatened.
Some information is received from dropsondes.
A dropsonde is a radio-like instrument dropped from the reconnaissance plane into a tropical cyclone. It records wind speed and direction, air pressure, air temperature readings, and altitude of these quantities. Dropsondes are just one part of information provided by reconnaissance aircraft gathers throughout the mission. Observations Before technology provided meteorologists with radar and satellite imagery to track hurricanes, sketchy information made it difficult to know where tropical cyclones would make landfall, increasing the probability that the public would be poorly warned or unwarned altogether. Formal installation of a national hurricane warning system was initiated by the U.S. Weather Bureau just before the turn of the century.