A US Airman prepares a WC-130J Weatherbird at Keesler AFB, Mississippi, to deploy to St. Croix, Virgin Islands, on 15 September 2010 to collect data on Hurricane Igor. The aircraft is assigned to the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler. Known as the Hurricane Hunters, squadron aircrews, which include trained meteorologists, gather vital weather information by flying through tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and the central Pacific Ocean to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
