WATCH: Pilot Flies Blind Through The Eye Of Cat 4 Hurricane Matthew

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Published

October 7, 2016

Meteorology ain’t just wind vanes and barometers, and that’s especially true when you’re dealing with an honest-to-God hurricane.

America’s National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration has a literal fleet dedicated to gathering info on those catastrophic weather events, and new footage from the bloody centre of Hurricane Matthew shows the risks those gutsy humans take to deliver vital info on massive storms.

Taken aboard a flight earlier today, the video shows the kind of conditions pilots have got to deal with: more or less, they’re flying blind, right into one of nature’s most horrifically powerful tempests.

Fasten your seatbelts, and all that.

Very turbulent flight today into the eye of powerful Cat 4 #HurricaneMatthew on WP-3D Orion #NOAA43. Credit: CAPT Tim Gallagher/NOAA pic.twitter.com/8VJpKzs3mn

— NOAAHurricaneHunters (@NOAA_HurrHunter) October 7, 2016

Of course, it’s not only the folks in the air you’ve got to feel sorry for. Hurricane Matthew has already left a massive trail of destruction in its wake, with upwards of 300 killed in Haiti. Tens of thousands of homes have been levelled in the embattled Caribbean nation.

Matthew has since been downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane, but it’s still heading north-west across the coast of Florida, and state is expecting to feel the full force of the storm within the next few hours. Already, winds of over 190 km/h have been recorded.

UPDATE: #HurricaneMatthew‘s outer eye-wall brushing the Florida coast, 100 mph wind gust reported at Port Canaveral. pic.twitter.com/ykYVHNfSxp

— ABC News (@ABC) October 7, 2016