Watch hurricane hunters shoot through Dorian’s stadium-like eye
Dorian is still alive and menacing.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hurricane hunters flew through Hurricane Dorian's eye on Thursday morning, revealing the "stadium-like" phenomena at the storm's core. Engineer Nick Underwood, who often captures rich cyclone footage from aboard NOAA planes, posted the video on Twitter.
Eyes are indicative of powerful cyclones (Dorian packed 110 mph maximum sustained winds as of 11 a.m. ET on Thursday). At the storm's core, violent thunderstorms, feeding on warm moist air, rise up as they rotate around the center of the cyclone, which can create a circular wall of clouds. And inside exists a calm, relatively clear eye.
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As of around 12 p.m. ET on Thursday, Dorian's eye was located about 50 miles off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. The storm's wide wind field is expected to drive life-threatening surges of water along the Carolinas, and eventually Virginia. Surf is now pounding the shores.
What's more, NOAA storm forecasters noted that Dorian's eye and surrounding winds -- home to a cyclone's strongest winds -- may come ashore in eastern South Carolina and southeastern North Carolina in the next 12 to 24 hours.
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Dorian has lived a wild life. After forming as an innocuous tropical depression (winds less than 38 mph or less) on August 24, the growing storm later passed over remarkably warm ocean waters, which helped the cyclone intensify into a monstrous Category 5 hurricane packing 185 winds -- one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record.
The potent, and soon deadly, storm then parked itself over the northern Bahamas, where the cyclone virtually stalled for a day, wreaking catastrophic damage upon Grand Bahama and Abaco islands.
"It was a crazy one," Jeff Weber, a meteorologist at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, said Tuesday.
Now the storm will spend a couple days lashing the U.S. coast.
Mark was the science editor at Mashable. After working as a ranger with the National Park Service, he started a reporting career after seeing the extraordinary value in educating people about the happenings on Earth, and beyond.
He's descended 2,500 feet into the ocean depths in search of the sixgill shark, ventured into the halls of top R&D laboratories, and interviewed some of the most fascinating scientists in the world.
