Ashes of Florida hurricane hunter take final mission into Milton’s eye

Peter Dodge, a meteorologist who flew into hurricanes on “Miss Piggy”, a P-3 Orion operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, had his ashes dropped into eye of Hurricane Milton’s eye as it was approaching Florida.

Dodge was a NOAA meteorologist of 44 years and died in 2023. NOAA hurricane hunters dropped his ashes inside Milton’s eye on Tuesday in a tribute to his life studying powerful tropical storms.

“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 NOAA’s hurricane research division in a statement. “By releasing his ashes into Hurricane Milton, we sought to honor his memory and his spirit of teamwork, adventure and curiosity.”

Dodge, a Florida resident, served as the onboard radar scientist on hurricane hunter missions. He had advanced expertise in radar technology and coordinated with research landfall teams to gather data with mobile weather platforms.

Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist and storm surge expert at WPLG in Miami, wrote on X that a vortex data message, sent out by the plane to record information about Milton, featured a tribute to Dodge’s final mission.

“PETER DODGE HX SCI (1950-2023) 387TH PENNY”, it read, with “387th” referring to the number of his flights. Lowry called spreading the renowned meteorologist’s ashes into Milton’s eye and the data message a “beautiful tribute”.

Among Dodge’s contributions was an academic paper on Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and caused $125bn in damage, that modeled forces associated with winds, waves and storm surge to better understand the performance of flood control systems.

Over the course of his career, Dodge received numerous awards from NOAA, the Department of Commerce and the Army Corps of Engineers.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, comments honoring Dodge poured in on social media. “Quite the tribute to a man who dedicated his life to studying these storms,” said Miami’s Fox 8.