National Weather Service (Part II): A Day in the Life of Weatherman John Elliot

Greg Jackson (0:01)

This is Rewind.

Lindsey Cormack (0:03)

Rewind.

John Elliott (0:06)

Everybody says, well, my phone says, my phone says it's gonna rain. Well, your phone's usually wrong, because the absence of that human interpretation, that's not right. If you want to really get nerdy about it, you know, a 20% chance of rain, is that a 20% chance that everybody's gonna see rain, or is that a 20% sector of this and that? So there's all these ways to massage these statistics that phones just don't do, yet.

Greg Jackson (0:38)

It's seven in the morning, July 27th, 1943 We're at Bryan Army Airfield, a newly activated US. Army Air Forces installation six miles west of the town of Bryan, in Brazos County, Texas. The slim-faced 41-year-old flight training officer, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph B. Duckworth, can see dark clouds approaching on the southeast horizon. This morning, newspapers report a storm looming over the Gulf of Mexico. But thanks to enemy U-boat activity in the Gulf, government sensors have limited the public's access to information. And today, that includes how intense the storms will be, whether it's forecasted to make landfall or any other specifics.

The Lieutenant Colonel can see with his own eyes that this storm, which will become aptly known as the Surprise Hurricane, is going to be a whopper. But instead of writing for shelter, he's got an idea. See Joseph is at Bryan for a very specific reason. Before World War II began, this decorated airman flew for Eastern Airlines. He's especially good at relying on advanced instrumentation to fly and considering many military aircraft don't have that technology for night or bad weather flying. Joseph's expertise is desperately needed. Many pilots have learned the hard way that, A, the enemy doesn't always sleep at night and that the dark of night is a daily thing. And B, Mother Nature really doesn't care about your battle plans. The silver-templed officer's job is to get other instructor pilots up to speed on flying by their instruments. And he sees the oncoming tempest as the perfect way to show how useful this technique can be. So Joseph tells 2nd Lieutenant Ralph O'Hare to gear up. He needs a navigator. The two men hop into a single-engine AT-6 Texan training aircraft. Taking off into the windy Texas air, they soar to 6,000 feet, making a beeline for the storm still 100 miles off. Once they hit the wall of clouds, the hurricane has them in its grip. Joseph and Ralph are surrounded by clouds and buffeted up and down by intense turbulence. As the navigator will later recall, the experience is akin to, quote, being tossed about like a stick in a dog's mouth, close quote. That said, the pilot's assessment in his flight report is a little more sober. He says that on the whole, it's not any different than flying through a good rough thunderstorm. Chances are, the truth is somewhere in between. But no matter what, it's dark, it's windy, and with rain pounding the canopy, I can only imagine the visibility is near zero.

Until it's not, all of a sudden, the tiny plane bursts through the darkness into what must have been incredibly welcome sunshine. Joseph and Ralph are reamed by ominous clouds, but here the air is calm. It's the eye of the hurricane. Lieutenant Colonel's point about instrument flying proven, our brave pilot banks the plane in a circle around the storm center. His navigator estimates it to be about 10 miles in diameter. They radio the surprise hurricane's position to the Houston Weather Bureau station. It's one of the first vortex reports ever made. Once they complete their measurements, Joseph heads back into the chaos. And again, they make it out unscathed, completing the 100-mile journey back to Bryan Army Airfield without incident. Undoubtedly, everyone back at base is eager to hear about what happened. That includes Bryan's weather officer, 1st Lieutenant William H. Jones Burdick. And after learning about what the two of them accomplished, William decides he wants to check the hurricane out too.

So Joseph gets back into the plane and off they go. And during this flight, the 1st Lieutenant is able to take a temperature survey with the aircraft's thermometer that gives some crucial insights into the storm. His report gets forwarded to the AAF's Weather Service Headquarters, where, I can only imagine the recipients are shocked to realize how he got this data.

Well, that was quite the thrill ride. Literally. While we have other reports of brazen pilots flying through hurricanes, according to the historical record, Joseph's journeys are widely regarded as the first, and second, documented flights into the eye of a hurricane. And more importantly, through that crucial second flight, Joseph B. Duckwork and William H. Jones Burdick helped prove it was possible to fly into a dangerous storm and take critical readings. And in the process, if we're ever changed, this type of weather reporting as we know it.