JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — When you are watching the Blue Angels at the Sea & Sky Air Show this weekend at Jacksonville Beach or anytime you see local military aircraft in the sky, you may be curious as to who is forecasting the weather for them. The answer would be the weather office at Naval Station Mayport.
Jeff Lankford, a weather forecaster for the base noted, “We provide now data for current conditions outside for helicopters and aircraft in the local area. We also provide the weather forecast for flights, icing, turbulence or any type of precipitation or thunderstorms that come into the local area."
In fact, First Coast News, On Your Side's Meteorologist Robert Speta’s first job in meteorology was at the base in 2005. Lankford mentioned sometimes the job does get intense though.
"When I first joined the Navy, I was stationed in Japan, and we had a typhoon coming through and we also had an earthquake at the same time," said Lankford. "It was [a] small one, like a 4.5 but, it shook a bit. It was the first time I ever was freaked out about the weather because we had a hurricane and an earthquake at the same time.”
The Blue Angels will also be relying on the weather office this weekend for data.
CDR Armatus, the pilot of Blue Angel 1, mentioned how the weather office plays a role in their flights.
“We will be getting weather information from Naval Station Mayport weather office that will be fed through 4 flight," Armatus said. "We will also use what we call pilot reports, PIREPS. Anybody that’s airborne ahead of us that can tell us anything about the weather."
And speaking of the Blue Angels, did you know that the pilot of the No. 2 aircraft, LCDR Kapuschansky, is a oceanographer, a type of naval meteorologist?
“As a kid, I always wanted to be a pilot, just meteorology, oceanography all that stuff was entertaining to me," Kapuschansky said. "So, I like the science, I liked growing up around the ocean. My dad was stationed here in '93 and I was always around the ocean and I truly admired it and wanted to learn more about it but aviation is what I wanted to get in to.”
The Sea and Sky Air Show 2023 will be a free two-day event, which will be held in Jacksonville Beach this weekend on Oct. 21 and Oct. 22.