There are a number of ways to go from the classroom to the eye of a hurricane, as more than a dozen area students and their parents learned on a recent excursion to the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Hurricane Hunters in Lakeland.
SFFGS Geomatics Program Specialist Ali Gonzalez Perez organized the trip.
“We reached out to ag teachers and FFA (Future Farmers of America) leaders in Hillsborough and Polk counties to invite students ranging from middle school to high school,” he said. “Additionally, we contacted academic advisors from state and community colleges in the Tampa Bay area, including Sarasota-Manatee State College, Hillsborough Community College, Polk State College, and Pasco-Hernando State College, asking them to help spread the word.
“We also invited geomatics students, local organizations that assist immigrants in pursuing education, and homeschooling parents.”
Area Scouts and 4-H organizations in Hillsborough and Polk counties were also involved.
While most people know the NOAA aircraft for the hurricane efforts that led to the Hurricane Hunters moniker, work at the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center (AOC) isn’t just for hurricane season.
“One thing I really want you guys to leave here knowing is that we do fly more than hurricanes,” said Sophie Talbert, a NOAA communications specialist. “We’re currently in hurricane season — we really do stay prepared — but there’s no offseason for science. So, NOAA, as a whole, our job is to study the planet from the sky, and we support that with our fleet of 10 aircraft. We’re flying scientific missions all year-round.”
She noted how their Lockheed WP-3D Orion (P-3) aircraft flies in North Atlantic winter storms, which is when Florida native Sofia de Solo, flight director and meteorologist for the NOAA Aircraft Operations Center, joined in.
“The winter storm (flights) are pretty cool, because what they’re doing, they have instrumentation on the aircraft to measure strong winds at the surface,” de Solo said. “But the cool part about it is this instrumentation is actually still being tested on our aircraft from NESDIS.”
NESDIS is the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service.
“What they’re doing here is they’re testing this instrumentation on our aircraft, which is a lot cheaper than putting it on a satellite,” de Solo said.
The purpose of the trip was to show students the use of remote sensing, and to give them a look at how a government agency employs geomatics graduates.
“This agency uses technologies and methodologies taught in the (SFFGS) geomatics program to take measurements and create maps of various phenomena, highlighting the connection between meteorology and geomatics,” Gonzalez Perez said.
De Solo, in the civilian service, graduated from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology and a minor in Geographic Information Systems. During that time, she interned with the Air Force Hurricane Hunters and the NOAA Hurricane Research Division.
Her master’s thesis at Mississippi State University centered on the rapid weakening of hurricanes with an emphasis on remotely sensed data.
“What I do is I sit behind the pilots on all the missions, all the hurricane missions, and I boss them around, which is really fun,” de Solo joked. “But as I mentioned, there’s a right way and a wrong way to fly into a storm.
“I want to make sure we’re avoiding certain parts of the storm. I understand the scientific mission, what they’re trying to look for, certain aspects of the storm, certain features of the storm, and I help the pilots find those parts of the storm….”
Ensign Larissa Sperk of the NOAA Corps, meanwhile, explained to the students what she did as a uniformed service member and her path to the job.
“I’m a tail Doppler radar (operator) on the P-3, so I’m P-3 aircrew, but I was hired to fly the light aircraft,” she said. “My assignment’s actually for the (De Havilland DHC-3-600) Twin Otter that does the marine mammal missions.”
In addition to storm work, one of the missions at the AOC is flying along the Atlantic Coast to spot and track North Atlantic right whales, especially for their calving season. The season runs November-April and occurs largely between Savannah, Ga., and Daytona Beach, though the whales are typically swimming south from waters off New England and the Canadian Maritimes.
“My first-ever flight was in Hurricane Erin — it did not make landfall,” Sperk said. “We were in it while it rapidly intensified, so each pass we went through, you could feel it getting stronger and stronger.”
She crewed flights last year that ended up with a combined 19 flights into four hurricanes, three of which hit major status. Her simulator training for the Twin Otter aircraft begins in January. In addition to those duties, Sperk manages a couple light aircraft projects.
As a uniformed service member, Sperk pointed out that a successful NOAA Corps applicant needs a bachelor’s degree, along with a significant number of other requirements, which she said leads a lot of people to not apply immediately after graduation. At least 48 semester credits — or 72 quarter credits — in STEM-related classes are required with the bachelor’s degree.
Photos: 2026 Hurricane Hunters Trip No. 2 | Flickr
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