He’s now one with nature.
Storm hunters sprinkled the ashes of a beloved longtime meteorologist into the eye of Hurricane Milton by plane Tuesday night to pay tribute to his life’s work.
Peter Dodge was honored by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s hurricane hunters for his 44-year career specializing in radar and tropical cyclones, according to firstcoastnews.com.
The eye of Hurricane Milton seen in a satellite image. RAMMB/CIRA“[It’s] a beautiful tribute,” Michael Lowry, a Hurricane Specialist at WPLG-TV in Florida wrote on X.
The storm measurement plane’s so-called vortex data read, “PETER DODGE HX SCI (1950–2023) 387TH” — to symbolically honor the weatherman’s 387th and final hurricane flight.
During his award-winning career, Dodge worked with the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, National Hurricane Center and Aircraft Operations Center.
Dodge died on March 3, 2023 at age 73.
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“Despite his progressive visual limitations, Peter continued to play a role in the [Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory’s] annual hurricane field program by designing flight modules for the Hurricanes at Landfall experiments and coordinating with research landfall teams to gather data with mobile weather platforms,” an AOML newsletter from early 2023 said.
Satellite image shows Hurricane Milton on Oct. 9, 2024 ahead of Florida landfall. via REUTERS“He will be dearly missed by those in the various work, aikido, bamboo, mindfulness and wellness, and blindness communities he cultivated.”
During his decades on the job, Dodge was awarded two NOAA Administrator Awards, a Department of Commerce Bronze Medal, and two Army Corp of Engineers Patriotic Civilian Service Awards.
The hurricane hunters dropped Dodge’s ashes into the then-Category 5 storm as it swirled off Florida’s west coast just after 11 p.m. Tuesday.
The powerful storm is projected to make landfall near Tampa, Sarasota and Fort Myers Wednesday night as many residents in the state recover from Hurricane Helene.
