NOAA flies 'Coyote' drones into Hurricane Edouard

Thursday, September 18, 2014, 8:08 PM - Its well-defined eye and non-existent threat to land made Hurricane Edouard the perfect testing ground for new 'Coyote' drones owned by the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA).

The four data-collecting 'bots were sent into the Atlantic hurricane earlier this week, where they observed sections of the storm that were too low for hurricane hunter planes to navigate.

"The stars lined up," Joe Cione of NOAA's Hurricane Research Division told the Associated Press.

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"It was strong, we knew where it was going, we had a deployment point where we could get in and out easily."

A Coyote drone is 3 feet long and weighs about 7 pounds. It is designed to stay inside a hurricane for up to an hour.

During that time, the device transmits temperature, pressure and wind data to a land-based computer before falling into the ocean.

A NOAA researcher with the drone. Courtesy: NOAA

It is intended for one-time use.

Cione says the data collected by the four drones could be "game changers," with one drone following air currents and another launching into Edouard's eye.

"There's no other device that can do that," he told AP. "It orbited the eyewall, and we've never measured anything like that."

By Thursday, Edouard had weakened to a tropical storm.

In the long-term, forecasters hope that drone technology will help forecasters better predict, and assess the potential impact, of a hurricane.

With files from the Associated Press