A NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft flew into the eye of devastating Hurricane Polo and the video is astonishing

Join the NOAA Corps as Ensign Josh Murdock flies directly into the eye of Hurricane Polo. Witness the intense cloud structures and atmospheric conditions of this powerful cyclone over the Pacific Ocean.

When we think of a Category 5 hurricane, we imagine fierce winds, torrential rain and a sky transformed into chaos. But on the other side of the eyewall, the scene suddenly changes. A patch of blue sky appears, surrounded by towers of cloud rising as far as the eye can see. This is what the eye of Hurricane Polo looked like from a NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft.

On 22nd September, when a NOAA aircraft investigated Polo, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) reported that the cyclone, at that time a Category 5 hurricane, had maximum sustained winds of around 285 kilometres per hour and a central pressure of 892 hectopascals.

Around that zone of calm, local and temporary though it may be, the hurricane continues to spin. The eyewall surrounds it like a ring of thunderstorms where some of the system’s strongest winds are concentrated. And to reach the relative calm of the centre, reconnaissance aircraft must pass through this area of cloud and turbulence.

The calm in the middle of the …..

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