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The storm hunters from Hong Kong braced themselves as Super Typhoon Yagi rattled their small jet. At 30,000 feet, they released probes into the Category 4-strength storm as it churned south of the city last month, gathering data many meteorologists consider crucial to improving forecasts.
“Some prefer going with an empty stomach,” Capt. Chan Wing Chi of the Hong Kong Government Flying Service said in an interview after the flight, unfazed by the intense turbulence he had just experienced.
The U.S. government has been sending observation planes into storms across the Americas for more than 80 years. But they are rare in this part of the western Pacific, which sees so many major storms each year that meteorologists call it “Typhoon Alley.”
The storms that pass through this area affect a wide swath of Asia, including Japan, the Korean Peninsula, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam and the Philippines. But only a handful of these missions are conducted in Asia each year because of long-running political disputes, the high cost of flights, and a lack of regional consensus on their value.
Many scientists say observation flights can reduce errors in storm forecasts by 10 to 20 percent, but only Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan conduct them in this region.
“There’s nothing that beats actually having the planes in there,” said Jason Dunion, a meteorologist who studies how to improve hurricane forecasts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which conducts such flights.
“In places like the Indian Ocean or the Western Pacific, they don’t have the benefit of that reconnaissance,” he added. “They’re relying on ship reports, island reports, satellite data to get that information.”
In the Atlantic, many countries regularly allow American observational planes to fly in their airspace.
But there is a complex patchwork in Asia, where some nations have long-running disputes, including conflicting maritime claims in the South China Sea, and would not open their airspace for weather flights.
Each government contributes data to the Typhoon Committee, which helps to create tropical cyclone forecasts as part of the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organization. But the committee’s 14 member countries have never considered coordinating such flights, said Taoyong Peng, a senior official at the World Meteorological Organization.
Expanding these flights to the entire region would raise security concerns, he said.
Such observations are also expensive. Each flight can cost about $15,000 per hour, and could last between two and five hours, according to meteorologists in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Some scientists and governments in Asia are also unconvinced that these flights will improve forecasts.
Dong-Hyun Cha, a professor who studies tropical cyclones at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea, said the lack of these flights did not lead to a “significant decrease in typhoon predictability.”
Improved satellite readings have also made up for the scarcity of data from countries like North Korea and Myanmar, Mr. Cha said.
In Hong Kong, though, meteorologists have regularly used data from aircraft to refine forecasts. In some cases, that has allowed the authorities to react quickly to potentially devastating storms.
Last year, after a jet dropped probes into a storm named Talim, meteorologists realized it was much stronger than the initial predictions, which were based on readings from satellites and buoys. This prompted the authorities to upgrade Talim to a typhoon and speed up preparations in Hong Kong, said Cheung Ping, a meteorologist at the Hong Kong Observatory.
Taiwan, too, has sent planes into typhoons for decades. Some flights have greatly improved forecasts, said Chun-Chieh Wu, an atmospheric scientist who has led Taiwan’s storm flight missions.
The day before Typhoon Sepat hit Taiwan in August 2007, pilots took Mr. Wu’s team on a loop around the storm’s eye. He launched about 15 probes that gathered information about the storm as they fell toward the ocean.
The data showed that Sepat’s radius of gale-force winds was about 155 miles, much larger than the 112 miles initially forecast, Mr. Wu said. The finding prompted meteorologists to raise the severity of their warnings before Sepat made landfall.
Hong Kong sends jets toward three storms a year on average, Mr. Cheung said. Capt. Chan of the Hong Kong flying service said the flights are important despite their cost.
“If the data we collect saves lives,” he said, “it’s worth it.”
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