Hurricane trackers have had enough of Fay

Thursday, August 21, 2008

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When a hurricane comes blowing into town you'll likely see Mark Sudduth's mobile weather and internet broadcast truck in the middle of the storm.

PINELLAS COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- HurricaneTrack.com founder and editor Mark Sudduth and his team of hurricane trackers have had enough of Fay.

After four continuous days of tracking the storm non-stop, they've called it quits from the field because Fay is too weak.

Bay News 9 caught up with Sudduth in St. Petersburg on his way home to North Carolina.

"We gathered data down in Everglade City, Marco Island," Sudduth said. "Documented it with pictures and video to tell the story of what Fay was all about."

But Fay's nothing compared to some of the storms Sudduth has covered. The big hurricanes get a sticker on the side of his truck. He's got an anemometer, a device for measuring wind speed, on the roof.

"That'll probably handle a 200 mile-an-hour wind gust if we ever see that. I hope we don't," he said.

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Sudduth has gotten creative with his equipment. When it's too dangerous for the trackers to stay outside, they leave a security camera that's attached to an L-bracket with electrical tape in the path of the hurricane, giving them live color images.

Bay News 9's Chief Meteorologist Mike Clay says being in the middle of the storm with weather instruments is helpful.

"The radar is shooting through a storm at a certain height, you know, the radar beam is above the ground. And the satellite is looking down from space. And one of the big problems is when a hurricane hits a lot of the regular weather stations you use go off line because the power goes out," Clay said. "So folks like this provide us other ways of getting information."

"We want to contribute to the science more than anything when it's all said and done," Sudduth said.