Return to the Main Page Lee B. Weiher is a civilian employee of the United States Air Force. He is currently stationed with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. While working for an operational unit in the Department of Defense, Weiher has also managed to make significant contributions to NOAA's hurricane research efforts. In the late 1980s, NOAA's Hurricane Research Division (HRD) developed a keen interest in the hurricane eye profiles U.S. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft were collecting from Omega dropwindsonde (ODW). Mr. Weiher volunteered to provide this important data to HRD on a no cost basis. The data would have been discarded otherwise. Annually, over the last 10 years, he continued collection of this data which led researchers to a much fuller understanding of the hurricane eye dynamics. Some of these findings were published in Dr. Hugh Willoughby's paper "Tropical Cyclone Eye Thermodynamics" which appeared in the December 1998 Monthly Weather Review. NOAA's last purchase of ODWs occurred in the mid 1980s. As these sondes aged they began to fail, mostly because of battery malfunctions. Lee Weiher and his associates developed a battery replacement program, and rehabilitated, with great effort and again without charge to NOAA, literally hundreds of dropwindsondes. These sondes were then used in HRD's Hurricane Field Program. Many of the ODW sondes were employed in the Synoptic Flow Experiment, including an important mission into Hurricane Emily in 1993. The data from this mission allowed National Hurricane Center forecasters to confidently predict that Emily would recurve without affecting the highly populated northeastern United States coastline. This correct prediction saved millions of dollars in preparedness costs. Data from dropsondes salvaged by Weiher were later used to demonstrate that hurricane forecasts could be improved by 20-30% through environmental sampling. The promise of improved forecasts provided the scientific justification for NOAA's new Gulfstream IV jet. Both NOAA and populations along vulnerable U.S. coasts at risk from hurricanes owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Weiher. His interest and unselfish actions on behalf of NOAA's Hurricane Research division, and the mission of hurricane forecasting, materially furthered. NOAA's ongoing program of research into leading-edge technologies was materially aided and advanced the state of the science, thereby saving lives and property.