Hurricane Hunters

It's Hurricane Awareness Week, and two "hurricane hunter" aircraft came to the Roanoke airport yesterday. Most hurricane fatalities are due to inland flooding, so Roanoke is a good location to remind everyone of the dangers of flash floods from excessive rainfall. Who could pass up an opportunity to visit these aircraft (an Air Force C-130 and a NOAA P3-Orion)?

The first plane we got to see was an Air Force C-130. We waited about an hour to tour this plane. Who knew that so many people would come out on a Wednesday afternoon?

We entered through the rear cargo door of the aircraft.

The "dropsonde" port. Dropsondes are used on both aircraft, and send data back to the plane as they fall through the hurricane.

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has a Navy plane, the P3-Orion.

Workstation to monitor data on the NOAA plane.

The front of the NOAA plane reminds me of a narwhal.

This aircraft has studied 106 hurricanes/typhoons/cyclones going back to 1976. (Strong tropical systems are called hurricanes in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans, typhoons in the western Pacific Ocean, and cyclones in the Indian Ocean.)

Wildlife & More

So I've been procrastinating before posting these pix ...

Signs of spring (this is back in April): Hepatica

We got rid of rickety old wood racks on our deck and built some more substantial ones.

An interesting "tree arch" in the national forest near our property.

From the right angle it can look like an animal (horse? donkey? rhinoceros?).

Now for some real animals. It's been many months since our trail cams caught a black bear moseying by.

Coyotes are commonly seen on our trail cams, but this one appears to be carrying a fresh kill to its den.