While residents on Kauai prepare for Hurricane Lowell’s impact, a team of three is flying straight into the storm.

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Lt. Sarah Cozart, a pilot, and meteorologists Sofia De Solo and Ryan Knapp are just a few who make up the “Hurricane Hunters,” a team tasked with gathering storm data under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The trio’s current mission is tracking Lowell, which as of 5 p.m. Monday was a Category 2 hurricane with 110 mph winds.

That data can be life-saving, as it allows forecasters and emergency officials to warn residents of danger at the earliest point possible.

“The data that we collect, it’s a snapshot of the entire atmosphere, which allows for that data to go directly into the weather models that help make the forecast better,” Knapp explained. “This data that we’re supporting helps aid forecasters on the ground at the (National) Hurricane Center and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center have better confidence in their forecasts to better inform the public ahead of time.”

When Hurricane Dot, a Category 2 storm with between 103 mph and 115 mph winds, made landfall in 1959 — the first hurricane to do so in recorded history — residents were given around 12 hours of notice, according to archived NOAA records. With a combination of satellite, weather modeling and flight missions, residents now know days in advance whether a hurricane will have impacts on their communities.

“There’s no surprise hurricanes,” Knapp said. “We have a lot of lead time to alert people who are on the islands or on the mainland ahead of these storms.”

The team flew into Lowell on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, gathering data for both forecasts and research purposes using dropsondes, or data-gathering tubes dropped by parachute. The dropsondes record temperature, dew point, wind speed, air pressure and other data points as it descends the 45,000 feet the team cruises at in NOAA’s Gulfstream IV-SP, or G-IV, jet. NOAA’s other Hurricane Hunter team, which has two four-engine turboprop aircrafts, flies into the eye of the storm.

At 45,000 feet, the team can usually see cloud bands of well-organized storms. But inside the hurricane, dark, high clouds can create ice.

“Outside of our window is a very ominous, spooky haze at times,” De Solo said. “You can’t really see much when we’re up in the icy levels. … That’s a very unique hurricane experience.”

Despite flying into a Category 4 hurricane on Saturday, the flight into Lowell was rather smooth, the crew said.

For Cozart, flying into strong hurricanes can be easier to navigate as a pilot. The stronger the hurricane, the more well-organized and predictable the storm, she explained, because its main convection is around the eye of the storm.

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“It made a pretty easy job for me today,” De Solo added.

Rapidly intensifying hurricanes or weaker storms tend to be more difficult to fly, Cozart said. For example, when the team flew missions into Hurricane Lala, a Category 1 storm with 80 mph winds that devastated southern portions of the Big Island, the flight felt a little bit more “chaotic” due to its convection being less organized. The team also could only complete two missions before they had to evacuate.

“Operating in the Pacific — where there aren’t very many other airports to operate out of — if the storm is coming for the Hawaiian Islands, there’s not really another airport where we can still fly the storm and stay out here,” Cozart said. “That’s a very specific challenge that we run into.”

The team can fly out of most of the main airports, she explained, but the storm’s track, intensity and proximity to the islands can impact whether it’s safe for them to take off and land.

While the team communicates and often flies in tandem with the Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, the military’s “Hurricane Hunters” team, they operate separately, Cozart said. The Air Force team does run missions for the National Hurricane Center, but because they operate under the Department of Defense, the data they collect — and the instrumentation on their plane — is more limited and strictly for operational purposes, like forecasting. NOAA, however, is housed under the Department of Commerce, which allows for research missions, scientist involvement and different types of radars.

The Air Force’s team also began missions into Lowell on Friday, the National Weather Service told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

The three love their job, and recognize that it’s pretty cool to fly into hurricanes for a living. But at the same time, the job carries a heavy weight that they take seriously.

“Sometimes these storms are barreling towards like really populous communities or coastal communities and we know that they’re gonna get a hard hit,” De Solo said. “It’s just really hard to be inside a storm collecting data, seeing the data with our eyeballs knowing it’s gonna impact so many people and there’s nothing else we can’t stop it. We can only help predict it better.”

Based in Florida, the team has flown into some of the country’s most devastating hurricanes. They had friends and colleagues personally affected by Hurricane Maria in 2017, which killed more than 4,600 people as it made landfall in Puerto Rico as a strong Category 4, and gathered data on Hurricane Milton, which made landfall on Florida’s west coast as a Category 3 in 2024, and Hurricane Helene, which resulted in at least 250 deaths in Florida’s Big Bend region in 2024.

The stakes give purpose to the mission, the crew said.

“We’re public servants, uniformed officers and federal employees. We do this because we really believe in it.” Cozart said. “We care about our nation. We care about our fellow citizens. We care about anyone who might be impacted by these storms and we care about science. It really is a service and labor of care and love.”

Plus, those heavy missions don’t always end in disaster.

“It’s very fulfilling when we do these missions and then you see the forecast change, and it changes for the better and you see that sigh of relief from those who were originally in the way,” Knapp said. “It’s rather rewarding to know your efforts are going toward a greater good.”

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