PORTLAND, Maine — Hurricane season is less than a month away. While Maine doesn't regularly see hurricanes and tropical storms, the state is still at risk of impacts.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hurricane Awareness Tour stopped at the Portland International Jetport to help educate people about the upcoming hurricane season and how it anticipates the state will be affected.
Maine has seen a lot of flooding over the past year. Hurricane Lee brought some heavy rain and flooding last September, but even that damage wasn't as detrimental as last winter's nor'easters.
"It doesn't take a storm making direct landfall in New England or Maine or a major hurricane to bring major impacts, especially on the rainfall flooding side," Michael Brennan, the National Hurricane Center's director, said. "In a warming climate, we know that the rainfall rates and the rainfall amounts are increasing in tropical storms and hurricanes. And we know that's happening already. That will continue to worsen."
If more tropical storms were to reach the Northeast, the combination of strong winds, heavy rain, and sea level rise will expose more of Maine's communities, inland and coastal.
Flight directors also gave tours of two hurricane hunter aircrafts that fly through hurricanes. The planes on display Monday, one with the U.S. Air Force and the other with NOAA, directly measure key information, like peak winds and the intensity of the eye wall.
"This data is going to come off this airplane and get in the hands of the forecasters which will get into the hands of the decision makers," Jonathan Zawislak, NOAA meteorologist and flight director, said. "Both of our aircraft has the ability to carry all of this instrumentation to sample the storm in a way that you can't get with anything else."