ORLANDO, Fla. – History was made during the 2025 hurricane season in more ways than one.
Uncrewed systems such as drones have recently burst onto the scene to help meteorologists obtain critical data in areas once thought impossible.
During a mission into Tropical Storm Melissa last month, it is believed that for the first time ever, video shows the deployment and transition to controlled flight inside a tropical system.
The video shows the uncrewed aircraft system descending through Melissa’s rainbands.
The uncrewed aircraft system or UAS is deployed from a NOAA P3 Hurricane Hunter aircraft.
This drone, the Black Swift S0, then can gather critical data from areas of the atmosphere unsafe for humans.
The Hurricane Hunters gather data around 10,000 feet during the missions. The Black Swift S0 can fly just feet off of the ocean.
“We’re doing atmospheric thermodynamics so that means 3D winds including vertical winds which is one of the key components and really hard to measure right now. The ocean surface temperature and the ocean height so we’re trying to extract how much energy is coming out of the ocean and going into the storm,” said Black Swift founder and CEO Jack Elston.
During this particular mission the uncrewed aircraft flew for just under two hours which included 15 minutes at approximately 30 feet above the ocean surface.
Elston says they hope to deploy multiple drones within the storm at the same time to collect even more data for the 2026 hurricane season.