Known as the “stadium effect,” the clouds of the eyewall towered over and around the aircraft. Hurricane Lane Map: Tracking the Storm’s Path Toward Hawaii.

During their flight on August 21, the crew passed through Lane’s eyewall, a Category 5 storm at that time, and captured video from the eye of the hurricane. As Hurricane Lane churned toward Hawaii, NOAA deployed two of the agency’s hurricane hunter aircraft, a Lockheed WP-3D Orion (Kermit) and Gulfstream IV-SP (Gonzo), from Honolulu starting August 19 to collect data vital to determining the storm’s strength and predict its path as it moved west. The storm has dumped heavy rain on parts of Hawaii and some areas could expect as. The Gulfstream IV, a high-speed, high-altitude jet, has been sampling the environment around Hurricane Lane, including the winds that are steering it, while the four-engine WP-3D Orion turboprop has been passing directly through the storm at lower altitudes, flying right into and through its eye. The satellite image below shows Hurricane Lane’s outer rain bands lashing the Big Island of Hawaii on Wednesday. Inouye International Airport, the aircraft have been using Doppler radar and air-dropped sensor probes to measure conditions both in and around the hurricane, including wind speed, wind direction, temperature, pressure, and humidity. These winds can be accelerated over and downslope from. Inouye Highway between mile markers 8.9 and 11.1 were closed due to water and debris crossing the road. The road is limited to single lane emergency access from mile marker 0 to mile marker 32. As Hurricane Lane churned toward Hawaii, NOAA deployed two of the agency’s “hurricane hunter” aircraft, a Lockheed WP-3D Orion (“Kermit”) and Gulfstream IV-SP (“Gonzo”), from Honolulu starting August 19 to collect data vital to determining the storm’s strength and predict its path as it moved west. Lane will pass dangerously close to the main Hawaiian Islands as a hurricane Thursday and Friday, and is expected to bring damaging winds. Highway 19 near Honomu experienced more than 14 landslides causing four complete road closures.

Lane hurricane track