Flying Into the Eye of Cat 5 Hurricane Irma 2017

Flying into the eye of Cat 5 Hurricane Irma 2017
Video showing a flight through the eye of Hurricane Irma from a Tuesday morning flight on NOAA's Hurricane Hunter aircraft

Hurricane Irma was an extremely powerful Cape Verde hurricane that caused widespread destruction across its path in early September 2017. Irma was the first Category 5 hurricane to strike the Leeward Islands on record, followed by Maria two weeks later. At the time, it was considered the most powerful hurricane on record in the open Atlantic region, outside of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, until it was surpassed by Hurricane Dorian two years later. It was also the third-strongest Atlantic hurricane at landfall ever recorded, just behind the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane and Dorian