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    • NOAA scientist Peter Dodge’s ashes fell into the eye of Hurricane Milton
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    NOAA scientist Peter Dodge’s ashes fell into the eye of Hurricane Milton

    Bronwen Cerys Posted on

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    Late hurricane researcher Peter Dodge can rest forever knowing he will make his final flight through a historic hurricane this week.

    On Tuesday, meteorologists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave Dodge a so-called burial at sea, throwing the longtime federal scientist’s ashes into the eye of Hurricane Milton, which is expected to cause catastrophic damage in Florida after making landfall late Wednesday.

    During his productive career, Dodge made dozens of hurricane flights, during which scientists measured air pressure, wave height on the ocean surface, wind speed and other factors to help everyday people learn about and prepare for storms. A typical hurricane flight will fly through the eye of a storm a few times, said Jeff Masters, a longtime meteorologist. Dodge made 386 “eye penetrations,” or pennies, during his career, he said.

    “He performed 386 eye penetrations during his lifetime, with the 387th occurring last night,” Masters said.

    Dodge, a mathematician and scientist who measured the characteristics of hurricanes to make more accurate forecasts, was a wonderfully curious person and enjoyed topics beyond science, colleagues said.

    More: Hurricane Milton tracker: See the expected path of the “extremely life-threatening” storm

    He was 72 when he died in 2023 after a stroke, his sister Shelley Dodge told USA TODAY.

    For most of his career, Dodge was a radar scientist at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Florida. Dodge also served in the Peace Corps in Nepal in the 1970s.

    Masters, who took several flights with Dodge, said he believes this is only the fourth time since the 1970s that a meteorologist’s ashes have been thrown into the eye of a hurricane.

    Dodge’s last flight through Milton

    NOAA scientists who call themselves “hurricane hunters” held a ceremony for Dodge’s cremated remains on Tuesday’s flight through Milton, which flew into the eye of the storm in just a minute. That’s about three to four minutes less than usual because of the storm’s gigantic size and relatively small eye, said Kathryn Sellwood, who worked with Dodge and helped shed its ashes.

    “This was a very busy flight because it is a very strong hurricane and it is expected to make landfall in an area where it will have a very large impact,” Sellwood told USA TODAY.

    Hurricane season: Will there be another hurricane after Milton?

    Dodge’s sister, Shelley Dodge, said her brother developed an eye condition later in life that prevented him from participating in hurricane flights toward the end of his career. Now, said Shelley Dodge, he could finally embark on the final adventure.

    “They honored him because he kept wanting to go up on the plane,” said Shelley Dodge, an attorney from Longmont, Colorado.

    Because Dodge was such a beloved NOAA employee, Shelley Dodge said, some of his colleagues were there alongside the family at his deathbed. Storm chasers began planning Dodge’s final flight the day he died in March 2023, she told USA TODAY.

    “People loved him, and one person came up to me and said, ‘We’re going to make sure he gets his last flight,'” Shelley Dodge said through tears.

    TAMPA Many gas stations in Tampa are out of fuel as Hurricane Milton approaches

    “He understood hurricanes.”

    According to his sister, Dodge focused his research during his more than 40-year reign on the behavior of rain cells during a hurricane.

    “He understood hurricanes better or as well as anyone alive,” Masters told USA TODAY.

    Masters and Dodge were on a fateful scientific mission during Hurricane Hugo in 1989, where engine problems threatened their lives.

    On Tuesday evening, 20 people aboard the scientific flight about 300 miles southwest of Florida threw a cylindrical tube called a drop probe into the eye of Hurricane Milton after reading a poem titled “Peace, my heart” by Rabindranath Tagore had read.

    “The line that really stood out to everyone in the poem is: ‘Let the flight through the sky end with the folding of the wings over the nest,'” Sellwood said, reading from a folded paper copy of the poem.

    For Shelley Dodge, it was an honor her brother deserved.

    “That was the part of his job that he loved the most, that he talked about the most,” she said. “That was the beauty of what they did for Peter yesterday, that they made sure he was dropped through the eye.”

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    Bronwen Cerys
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