{"id":74782,"date":"2026-07-27T18:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=74782"},"modified":"2026-07-27T18:03:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T22:03:21","slug":"83-years-of-hurricane-hunters-noaa-legacy-at-lal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/07\/27\/83-years-of-hurricane-hunters-noaa-legacy-at-lal\/","title":{"rendered":"83 Years of Hurricane Hunters: NOAA Legacy at LAL"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Right here at Lakeland International Airport, The NOAA Hurricane Hunters<\/a> continue a remarkable aviation legacy that began 83 years ago today. \"\ud83c\udf00\"\"\u2708\ufe0f\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On July 27, 1943, U.S. Army Air Forces Lt. Col. Joseph B. Duckworth made the first deliberate flight into the eye of a hurricane. That historic mission helped launch a new era of aircraft reconnaissance into tropical cyclones, greatly improving how scientists understand and forecast these powerful storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lt. Col. Duckworth was among the pioneers who paved the way for today\u2019s Hurricane Hunters, including NOAA\u2019s Aircraft Operations Center, proudly based right here at LAL. \"\ud83d\udc99\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Credit: NOAA Aircraft Operations Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Right here at Lakeland International Airport, The NOAA Hurricane Hunters continue a remarkable aviation legacy that began 83 years ago today. On July 27, 1943, U.S. Army Air Forces Lt.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDdcLzc1ODE0NjE5MV8yMzUwMjM4MjQ5MDUyNTUxXzM2MTQ2NDM3MDUyNTAyOTE0NDNfbi53ZWJwP2ZpdD00NzIlMkM1OTAmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiI4MyBZZWFycyBvZiBIdXJyaWNhbmUgSHVudGVyczogTk9BQSBMZWdhY3kgYXQgTEFMIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJkb2lzIiwiZm9udCI6IiIsImJsb2dfaWQiOjE2MzA0MDY2MX0.W2-aEtUzR_YWwAAQAilxpZB7VD5-TVcLq2rht-ce8JQMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvbGFrZWxhbmRnYXpldHRlLmluZm9cL25ld3NcL3dwLWNvbnRlbnRcL3VwbG9hZHNcLzIwMjZcLzA3XC83NTgxNDYxOTFfMjM1MDIzODI0OTA1MjU1MV8zNjE0NjQzNzA1MjUwMjkxNDQzX24ud2VicCIsInR4dCI6IjgzIFllYXJzIG9mIEh1cnJpY2FuZSBIdW50ZXJzOiBOT0FBIExlZ2FjeSBhdCBMQUwiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImRvaXMiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.mFiA2uY8Oe1cMFJ9EqPWESFJBIN1DsRyIKle9Izk51QMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[15259,15255,1053,15260,15254,15253,15258,15256],"class_list":["post-74782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news","tag-aircraft-operations-center","tag-aviation-history","tag-hurricane-hunters","tag-joseph-b-duckworth","tag-lakeland-international-airport","tag-noaa","tag-tropical-cyclones","tag-weather-forecasting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74782"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74782\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74785,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74782\/revisions\/74785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}