In 1999, Hurricane Gert formed on the eastern side of the Atlantic and began the long trip to Bermuda. Along the way, it happened to pass over a hydrophone (an underwater microphone) planted half a mile deep in the mid-Atlantic.
And made a little noise.
A hurricane’s intense wind whips the waves into a churning frenzy, and deep below the surface of the ocean the turbulence creates a “rushing sound whose volume is a direct indicator of the storm's destructive power,” according to an MIT press release.
MIT engineering professor Nicholas Makris, in a paper from a forthcoming Geophysical Research Letters, takes data from Gert's cacophonous performance and proposes a new way to gauge the destructive power of an oncoming cyclone.
Right now, satellite imagery can give scientists a pretty good idea of where the hurricane is headed. But there’s only one way to get a good idea of wind speed and destructive potential: fly a plane right into the eye. Makris says the hurricane-diving planes cost $100 million each, and each flight costs about $50,000.
Keep the hot-doggers at home and use hydrophones instead, says Makris. He suggests dropping a line of hydrophones into the ocean just ahead of a hurricane and listening, listening, listening. According to his model, the hurricane’s voice and volume will reveal its strength -- and give us time to get out of the way.
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