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NOAA expert Peter Dodge’s ashes fell into Hurricane Milton

Vaseline October 11, 2024

The late hurricane scientist Peter Dodge can rest for eternity knowing he will make his final flight through a historic hurricane this week.

On Tuesday, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration meteorologists gave Dodge what they called a burial at sea, with the longtime federal scientist’s ashes falling into the eye of Hurricane Milton, which is expected to cause catastrophic damage to Florida after hitting land late Wednesday country came.

During his prolific career, Dodge made dozens of hurricane flights, where scientists measure air pressure, wave height on the ocean’s surface, wind speed and other factors to help everyday people learn about and prepare for storms. A typical hurricane flight will pass through the eye of a storm a few times, says Jeff Masters, a veteran meteorologist. Dodge completed 386 “eye penetrations,” or dimes for short, during his career, he said.

“He did 386 eye penetrations while he was alive and his 387th was last night,” Masters said.

Dodge, a mathematician and scientist who measured hurricane characteristics to help make more accurate forecasts, was a wonderfully curious person and enjoyed topics outside of science, colleagues said.

More: Hurricane Milton tracker: See the expected path of an ‘extremely life-threatening’ storm

He was 72 when he died after suffering a stroke in 2023, his sister Shelley Dodge told USA TODAY.

For most of his career, Dodge was a radar scientist at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Florida. Dodge also served in the Peace Corps in Nepal in the 1970s.

Masters, who has flown with Dodge several times, said he believes this is only the fourth time since the 1970s that a meteorologist’s ashes have fallen into the eye of a hurricane.

Dodge’s last run through Milton

NOAA scientists, who call themselves “hurricane chasers,” held a ceremony for Dodge’s cremated remains during Tuesday’s flight through Milton, which flew into the eye of the storm in just one minute. That’s about 3 to 4 minutes less than normal, due to the storm’s gigantic size and relatively small eye, said Kathryn Sellwood, who worked with Dodge and helped drop its ash.

“This was a very busy run because it is a very powerful hurricane and it is expected to make landfall in an area where it will have a very large impact,” Sellwood told USA TODAY.

Hurricane season: Will there be another hurricane after Milton?

Dodge’s sister, Shelley Dodge, said her brother developed an eye condition later in life that prevented him from going on hurricane flights toward the end of his career. Now, Shelley Dodge said, he could finally embark on that final adventure.

“They honored him because he always wanted to get back on the plane,” said Shelley Dodge, an attorney based in Longmont, Colorado.

Because Dodge was such a beloved NOAA staff member, Shelley Dodge said, some of his colleagues were next to family at his deathbed. Storm chasers began planning Dodge’s final flight the day he died in March 2023, she told USA TODAY.

“People loved him, and one person came up to me and said, ‘We’re going to make sure he has his last flight,’” Shelley Dodge said through tears.

TAMPA Many gas stations in Tampa are out of fuel as Hurricane Milton approaches

‘He understood hurricanes’

During his more than four decades of government service, Dodge focused his research on how rain cells behave during a hurricane, his sister said.

“He understood hurricanes better or as well as anyone,” Masters told USA TODAY.

Masters and Dodge were on an ill-fated scientific mission through Hurricane Hugo in 1989, where engine problems endangered their lives.

On Tuesday evening, about 300 miles (480 kilometers) southwest of Florida, 20 people aboard the scientific flight dropped a cylindrical tube, called a drop probe, into the eye of Hurricane Milton after reading a poem titled “Peace, My Heart ‘ by Rabindranath Tagore.

“The line that really stood out to everyone in the poem is, ‘Let the flight through the air end with the folding of the wings over the nest,’” Sellwood said, reading from a folded paper copy of the poem.

For Shelley Dodge, it was an honor her brother deserved.

“That was the part of his job that he loved the most, that he talked about the most,” she said. “That’s what was great about what they did for Peter yesterday: they made him fall through his eye. ”