Tropical Storm Debby: Drone Captures Eye of the Storm as it Batters Southeast

Tropical Storm Debby, the season's 4th named storm, is causing major flooding & tornadoes in the Southeast. Debby hit Florida as a Cat 1 hurricane Monday, with max winds of 80 mph, & has been blamed for 4 deaths.

The storm is now moving slowly through GA, SC, & NC, with flooding expected through Sunday in mid-Atlantic states & southern England.

A Saildrone Explorer drone, in partnership with NOAA, ventured directly into the eye of Debby before it made landfall, capturing amazing footage. The drone recorded wind gusts of 69 mph & waves over 16 feet high.

Saildrone & NOAA Mission:

This is the 4th mission for Saildrone & NOAA, who launched 12 unmanned vehicles to gather data on hurricanes just days before Debby formed. The USVs are durable, 23-foot vehicles built to withstand extreme conditions, equipped with sensors to measure various environmental data points.

The focus this year is on understanding how salinity affects hurricane development, & how much CO2 the ocean exchanges with the atmosphere during storms.

"It’s not known how hurricanes affect the exchange of CO2...If we can get one of these USVs into a major storm, it would give us some of the first direct measurements of air-sea CO2 exchange inside a hurricane,” - Greg Foltz, NOAA oceanographer.

The mission will run through October, with USVs powered by renewable energy, providing data that will be paired with NOAA aircraft & glider info.