For more than a week now, Hurricane Dorian has slowly pushed its way through much of the Caribbean and eastern seaboard of the United States, wrecking havoc on its slow, yet catastrophic path.
But as people in the affected areas spent much of their week either fleeing or hunkering down to wait out the storm, scientists from throughout the United States have flown directly into the eye of the hurricane to better understand the nature of the storm. Oh, and to take breathtaking photos like this one:
The above photo was taken by meteorologist and United States Air Force hurricane hunter Garret Black, who, along with other researchers, flew directly into the eye of Dorian on September 1 as part of a hurricane reconnaissance mission to better understand the storm, which at that point was a category 5 hurricane.
There’s something unsettling about seeing an image featuring a bright blue sky and an exposed sun inside of a wall of 180-mph winds and rain, but for a brief few moments, Black, and other scientists who brave this journey, are able to see something that few people get to experience.
According to the National Hurricane Center, these hurricane reconnaissance missions have been conducted since 1944 in hopes of collecting the most up-to-date data from inside the storm which can then be used by meteorologists on land to help predict future conditions and directions of the storm.
Hey, someone has to do it.