MOBILE — The 2026 NOAA Hurricane Awareness Tour made a stop Tuesday at Mobile International Airport, giving residents, media members and local officials a close-up look at the aircraft and expertise used to track and forecast hurricanes ahead of the Atlantic season.

The annual tour, held during National Hurricane Preparedness Week (May 3–9), featured four aircraft this year: NOAA's Lockheed WP-3D Orion, Gulfstream IV-SP and Beechcraft King Air 350 CER, along with the U.S. Air Force Reserve WC-130J. The event aims to highlight the science and coordination behind hurricane forecasting while urging communities along the Gulf Coast to prepare before storms develop.

Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center, described the tour as a key outreach effort.

"The hurricane awareness tour every year is one of our sort of flagship outreach and engagement events," Brennan said. "It reminds people how much effort is going into collecting the data, getting the forecast out, getting the message to people. And it's also a way to remind people, hey, hurricane season is coming right now."

Brennan noted that the northern Gulf Coast

remains especially vulnerable to hurricanes and warned that storms can form and strengthen quickly.

"You can have a storm develop very quickly and make landfall within just three or four days," he said. "So it's so important to have that plan in place now."

A major focus of this year's tour was improving public understanding of storm surge, one of the deadliest and least understood hurricane hazards. Cody Fritz, storm surge specialist team lead at the National Hurricane Center, said many people still concentrate too heavily on a storm's track and category.

"They focus so much on where the hurricane is, track is, they don't think about all the hazards associated with that hurricane and how far out away from the actual center of the storm they can happen," Fritz said. "Storm surge is one of those things that I don't think people have a lot of experience with."

Storm surge — defined as an abnormal rise of water pushed inland by a storm — can be especially dangerous along the Gulf Coast due to its geography.

"The Gulf Coast has what we call a very shallow continental shelf," Fritz said. "It's very wide, which means it's very shallow … and all that means to say is that it's very easy for the wind to push water."

Fritz emphasized that hurricane impacts vary widely, even among storms of the same category.

"Not all hurricanes are the same," he said. "A Category 4 yesterday isn't the same category you might experience today … they can all have different impacts."

He urged residents to take evacuation orders seriously, particularly when storm surge warnings are issued.

"If we put a storm surge warning … that means you are in danger," Fritz said. "When I say life-threatening, it means you may not survive that event."

Brennan said forecasting has improved significantly in recent years, especially in predicting rapid intensification.

"We've made a lot of progress in intensity forecasting … in particular even in the last five years or so," he said. "We've been able to make a lot more aggressive rapid intensification forecast."

He added that improved communication tools, including storm surge watches and warnings introduced in 2017, have helped reduce fatalities.

"Storm surge used to kill about half the people in tropical storms and hurricanes. Now it's down to 10 to 15%," Brennan said.

Still, he cautioned that dangers remain, even without a direct hit.

"It doesn't take a direct hit by the center of the storm on your community for there to be dangerous storm surge or dangerous winds or rainfall flooding," Brennan said.

Officials also highlighted lesser-known risks such as rip currents and inland flooding, which can occur far from a storm's center.

As hurricane season approaches, both experts stressed the importance of preparation.

"Be prepared now. Have your hurricane plan in place well before a storm threatens," Brennan said. "If you are in an evacuation zone, plan now for where you're going to go, how you're going to get there, what you're taking with you."

The Hurricane Awareness Tour will continue with stops in Lake Charles, Louisiana, after earlier visits to Sarasota, Florida, as part of NOAA's effort to educate and prepare coastal communities ahead of the 2026 hurricane season. 

Gabriella Chavez is a Report for America corps member who writes about growth and development in Baldwin County and our natural spaces for Gulf Coast Media. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by visiting https://tinyurl.com/yaf8yf5n.