Hurricane Season Ends

The 2013 hurricane season ended on 30 November 2013, and Air Force Reserve Command personnel from the 403rd Wing at Keesler AFB, Mississippi, closed the unit’s forward operating location at the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. Reservists spent 9-15 December 2013 packing up aircraft parts, tools, communications, and test equipment prepositioned at the airport in May to facilitate a quick response when the wing’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, known as the Hurricane Hunters, is tasked with a storm mission. Despite the predictions for an active hurricane season, the thirty-four flights flown in 2013 marked the least amount of flights the squadron has flown since 1966. Hurricane Hunter crews usually average 100 missions per season.