Watch: Scientists glean insight inside Helene
Two floating ocean drones deployed from St. Petersburg navigated Hurricane Helene's 140 mph sustained winds, and waves the size of a six-story building, to provide scientists with valuable data.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency ( NOAA ) received a record-breaking amount of real-time hurricane data as the massive storm rapidly intensified into a Category 4 before landfall in Taylor County early Friday morning. Saildrone , which operates from St. Petersburg's Innovation District at the waterfront Maritime and Defense Technology Hub , significantly aided those efforts.
The company has released initial footage from inside the massive storm that killed at least five people in Pinellas County. Saildrone is now "prioritizing high-resolution offload of data for scientific research."
Dr. Greg Foltz, an oceanographer at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), told the Catalyst that the St. Petersburg-based uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) successfully collected critical information from the "strongest parts" of Category 4 hurricane.
"It's really hard to get this data any other way," Foltz said. "Because nothing else like this can be steered into the path of hurricanes on the ocean surface and collect continuous data from all these sensors. It's really unique."
The overarching goal is to improve hurricane intensity forecasting. Meteorologists accurately predicted Helene's rapid strengthening and extensive wind field before the storm became a hurricane.
Foltz noted NOAA collects and feeds it into forecasting models in real-time. Gaining a better understanding of how the most dangerous storms form, track and intensify can ultimately save lives.
The Saildrones measured 110 mph wind gusts and 31-foot wave heights from roughly 20 miles outside the storm's eyewall. Foltz said Helene unexpectedly shifted east in the upper Gulf, which "kind of threw us off."
While the USVs "ended up on the weaker left side of the storm a little bit," Foltz said that was "right before landfall" as the storm rapidly intensified into a Category 4. "We got a lot of good data, and I'm looking forward to analyzing it."
Helene's last-minute shift east was not its only surprise. Foltz noted surface waters were not "cooling much at all" as the storm quickly churned through the Gulf of Mexico.
He said a "huge, big Category 4 storm" typically cools the ocean underneath more than Helene's recorded tenth of a degree. Foltz said the persistently warm water "definitely aided intensification," and he plans to "look into why that was the case."
He hypothesized that the entire water column remained warm due to the shallow depths off Florida's Gulf Coast. Foltz also expressed surprise over the Saildrones measuring significant fluctuations in wave heights.
High-resolution data will help researchers understand those variations. "We've had good luck getting Saildrones into hurricanes this year," Foltz said.
NOAA has partnered with the company to study hurricanes since 2020. However, agency scientists spent nearly two decades developing sensors specifically for Saildrones.
The two organizations got an early start on the 2024 mission as a USV deployed from St. Thomas intercepted Hurricane Beryl in early July, as it quickly became a Category 5 with winds reaching 165 mph.
Saildron explorers are 23 feet long and carry a sensor array to measure air, surface and water temperature and humidity, wind speed and direction, salinity, wave height and duration. Two USVs now boast instruments that quantify carbon exchange .
The USVs float autonomously along predetermined routes according to weather conditions and mission objectives. NOAA's AOML and Pacific Marine Laboratory work closely with Saildrone Mission Control to steer the vessels into oncoming hurricanes.
"We got one on the edge of Beryl, a couple into (Hurricanes) Debby, four into Ernesto and then two into Helene, in the Gulf," Foltz said. "So, just trying to build up that database."
Saildrones utilize wind and solar energy, which allows the fleet to remain at sea without refueling until the mission concludes in October. Foltz noted that the USVs could travel up to 100 miles in 24 hours to record surface and subsurface data from some of Earth's most inhospitable environments.
"That's the real advantage," Foltz said. "We're just trying to collect as much data as we can ... between the ocean and atmosphere to figure out how hurricanes work. And help people improve predictions or understanding of hurricanes."
