This is Miss Piggy.
Miss Piggy is the nickname for this NOAA Hurricane Hunter WP-3 Orion, sitting on the flight line at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. On Wednesday the plane flew into Tropical Depression Nine on a weather reconnaissance mission to collect information that would help predict the storm’s landfall. By the time the flight landed, the storm had been upgraded to Tropical Storm Hermine.
Flight Director and NOAA Meteorologist Jess Williams boards the Orion.
Miss Piggy flies into the storm.
Instruments in the cockpit.
NOAA Technician Todd Richards prepares to deploy a sophisticated tube-like module called a dropsonde; it will be dropped from the plane and collect data from the storm as it plunges toward the Gulf of Mexico.
