$15,000 Data Collection Drones Debut This Hurricane Season

The Coyote drone weighs just 13 pounds, but can whip through a powerful hurricane, skimming the sea’s surface to scoop up valuable information in an area that has been largely invisible to forecasters. The new tool, which was presented to National Hurricane Center researchers last week in Miami, was first tested in 2014’s Category 3 Hurricane Edouard. But that was just a dress rehearsal. This year, the small but formidable plane-shaped drone will blast into tropical cyclones sending real-time data back to hurricane forecasters tasked with making life-saving predictions.