Into the eye of Katrina

August 31, 2005 12:49 AM

Into the eye of Katrina: an impressive Flickr set taken from the NOAA-43 and NRL-P3 Hurricane Hunters as they fly into the hurricane's eye. The set owner studies hurricane rainband intensity using ELDORA radar aboard the specially equipped planes. It's a rough flight, but once inside, the results are awe-inspiring.
posted by cenoxo (24 comments total)

It has always amazed me how beautiful hurricanes are from above and within the eye, yet how utterly destructive and terrifying they are on the ground. Bitter-sweet.
posted by qwip at 1:31 AM on August 31, 2005

Very nice indeed. Thanks for finding these... now, how do I save copies of them?
posted by paperpete at 1:51 AM on August 31, 2005

Utterly amazing.

The clouds look so peaceful and pristine when you KNOW that seven different kinds of hell are in progress underneath.

Very impressive. I hope these guys get a brown-trouser allowance - getting into the eye must take a special kind of nerve.

*shiver*
posted by ninazer0 at 2:05 AM on August 31, 2005

paperpete - disable stylesheets in your browser.
That'll be easier with Firefox and the "Web Developer" exension, or Opera switched to "User" mode.
posted by NinjaPirate at 2:40 AM on August 31, 2005

Very impressive. I hope these guys get a brown-trouser allowance - getting into the eye must take a special kind of nerve.

I hope they get a bonus for the cool pictures but it is *much* safer where they are than on the ground.
posted by vbfg at 2:41 AM on August 31, 2005

i have the deepest respect for the bravery to do things like that.
even if it might be safer in the air than studying these phenomenons from the ground.

anyway, this might me much more intense than studying media design.. ;o)
posted by seitensprung at 3:51 AM on August 31, 2005

paperpete, you can always Prt Scr and then paste into a graphics program such as MSPaint.
posted by Hubajube at 4:20 AM on August 31, 2005

I'm desperate for the high-res versions of these.

Does anyone know this Flickr user?
posted by Mikey-San at 4:25 AM on August 31, 2005

I always wanted to see what it's like in the eye.
posted by fungible at 6:36 AM on August 31, 2005

these are beautiful.
thanks.
posted by Busithoth at 6:52 AM on August 31, 2005

Gorgeous, gorgeous pictures.
posted by SisterHavana at 7:05 AM on August 31, 2005

Spectacular images!
posted by riffola at 8:04 AM on August 31, 2005

Wonderful.
posted by odinsdream at 8:18 AM on August 31, 2005

Excellent post.
posted by me3dia at 9:47 AM on August 31, 2005

Mikey-San:
try this for high res photos from NOAA

thanks for posting these cenexo.
posted by culberjo at 9:49 AM on August 31, 2005

The eyewall shots are just unbelievably surreal. The enormity and scale of it is just amazingly difficult to comprehend - that that yawning space is 25-40 miles across and comprised of nothing but pressure differentials and water vapor.

In the pic in culberjo's link you can clearly see helical striations in the eyewall directly in front of the plane, as well as spiral-like structures feeding into the eyewall out from the floor of the eye itself.

Intense.
posted by loquacious at 10:07 AM on August 31, 2005

Beauty above, death, carnage and despair below. I don't know what to think.
posted by thisisdrew at 10:47 AM on August 31, 2005

Rainband structure from Inside the Storm: The Anatomy of a Hurricane.

This is part of the Hurricane Strike! presentation by the Comet® program at UCAR in Boulder, Colorado (more hurricane documents here.)
posted by cenoxo at 11:08 AM on August 31, 2005

amazing pics...

paperpete, can't ya just 'right-click -> save as' ?
posted by gnutron at 11:09 AM on August 31, 2005

I like this one at the NOAA site
posted by Eekacat at 12:58 PM on August 31, 2005

gnutron, if you try that, you just get "spaceball.gif" a 1x1 pixel image.
posted by Hactar at 2:09 PM on August 31, 2005

The only reason you can't view the photos at larger sizes or save the displayed photo normally is because the user went out of his way to change the settings in his user profile so that you can't do that.

In short, he's a dick. The kind of person who would disable right clicking with ugly javascript if they knew how.
posted by blasdelf at 8:41 PM on August 31, 2005

More Katrina image links in the NOAA posts more than 350 aerial images... FPP above.
posted by cenoxo at 10:56 PM on August 31, 2005

Well, I finally got to save these by using NinjaPirate's advice. :o)

For those using Opera, display the page in user mode and save to your heart's content.

(blasdelf, I agree.)
posted by paperpete at 7:43 AM on September 1, 2005