Storm-chasing NASA pilots recently spent weeks flying modified a spy plane directly into thunderstorms in an effort to gain new insights about lightning and severe weather.
Lightning has historically only been researched by low-flying aircraft or ground observers who are too far from thunderclouds to examine their detailed characteristics. Conversely, NASA’s many satellites, such as the imaging sensor on the International Space Station, are attempting to measure lightning and related energy discharges from hundreds or even thousands of miles above.
But as the highest flying plane in the space agency’s Airborne Science Program, the ER-2 aircraft was able to literally fly into the eye of the storm itself. The 60 hours of flight its pilots logged over the course of a month provided previously inaccessible observations that NASA hopes will help scientists better predict when storms could turn severe.
“This is a mission to go into the microphysics of what is going on in the enormous electric field above our heads,” principal investigator Nikolai Ostgaard from the University of Bergen said in a written statement.
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How often do lightning strikes occur?
About 40 million lightning strikes hit the ground in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are less than one in a million, and almost 90% of all lightning strike victims survive, the CDC said.
Though it’s rare that people are struck by lightning, the lingering threat is still a major cause of storm related deaths in the U.S. In the last three decades, the U.S. has averaged 43 reported lightning fatalities per year, according to the National Weather Service.
A lightning strike can result in a cardiac arrest, which can lead to irreversible brain damage for those who survive if they’re not resuscitated in a timely manner, the weather…
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