Peter Dodge, a meteorologist who worked on hurricane aircraft missions, spent much of his life chasing huge storms.
Death was no exception.
On Tuesday evening, the Hurricane Hunters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration dropped Mr. Dodge’s ashes into the eye of Hurricane Milton as the storm crossed Gulf waters on its path to Florida.
The flight in which his remains were taken was part of research into the storm — a fitting tribute, his colleagues said.
“Peter truly had an unyielding passion for participating in field activities, including flying, and an insatiable curiosity for research,” said Shirley Murillo, deputy director of the Hurricane Research Division at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. “By releasing his ashes into Hurricane Milton, we sought to honor his memory and his spirit of teamwork, adventure and curiosity.”
Mr. Dodge, a Florida resident who celebrated 44 years of federal service before his death last year, had advanced expertise in radar technology and collaborated with the National Hurricane Center and Aircraft Operations Center on land-based and airborne radar research, according to the NOAA meteorological laboratory.
The lab added that during hurricane seasons, Mr. Dodge would serve as the onboard radar scientist on hurricane missions. He also designed flight modules and coordinated with research landfall teams to gather data with mobile weather platforms, contributing to efforts to better understand the evolution of hurricanes’ structures.
Over the course of Mr. Dodge’s career, he received the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal, two NOAA Administrator Awards, and the Army Corps of Engineers Patriotic Civilian Service Award.
On Mr. Dodge’s final flight on Tuesday, the Hurricane Hunters were gathering data, inside, above and around Hurricane Milton to provide critical and real-time information to the National Hurricane Center as well as other modelers and forecasters, the lab said.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, comments honoring Mr. Dodge poured in on social media.
Calling it a “beautiful tribute” to the renowned scientist, Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist and storm surge expert at WPLG-TV in Miami, noted on X that the vortex data message, sent out by the plane to record information about the storm, featured a tribute to Mr. Dodge’s final mission
It included his name, “387th” for the number of his flights, and the inscription “1950-2023” for the years of his life.
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