There is no in-flight entertainment, and yet my hosts in blue flight suits tell me to prepare for a show. I have been briefed to avoid gassy foods, and the sick sack is pointed out to me.

I am about to take flight aboard one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s hurricane hunter aircraft, nicknamed Kermit. It’s one of two WP-3D Orion turboprop airplanes that NOAA operates out of Lakeland, Fla. Kermit is older than me, having flown through its first hurricane in 1976, and it has the names of over a hundred hurricanes painted on its belly.

The Air Force Reserve’s 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron and NOAA operate hurricane hunter planes that fly into or over active storms. One of theirs will be in the storm at the same time as Kermit, but flying at 5,000 feet while we cruise around 10,000 feet. Another, an upper-altitude plane, called Gonzo, will be flying even higher above us, surveying the upper-level winds of the storm.

It is hard to miss the NOAA planes, dark blue and stark white, the colors often associated with the weather that they are chasing, and which are also found in the government agency’s logo.

These planes fly specific missions to provide crucial data for computer weather models but they also relay current conditions of the storm to forecasters at the hurricane center. They use multiple kinds of radar to create a 3-D view of the storm, giving forecasters an MRI-like view of a storm.

Then, they drop instruments called dropwindsondes, which are inserted into a tube and released from the plane during flight. They are sensors that parachute through the storm and relay data like pressure and wind measurements back to the aircraft as it makes its descent to the ground.

The objective this afternoon will be to help identify the exact location of the center of the storm, and to analyze its structure and determine if it is beginning to resemble a hurricane. The data will be crucial to understand just how powerful this storm may become on Wednesday.