It's been 15 years since Hurricane Hugo struck the Lowcountry. Now we've got Storm Team 2 Live VIPIR and 3-D images of weather, and most of that technology came about in these last 15 years. Storm Team 2 got together with Jerry Harrison of the National Weather Service to discuss the changes in technology and forecasting since Hurricane Hugo.

"We used to say that there was significant changes every 15 years in NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration), but since the early 1990s there have been significant changes about every 5 years through about 2000. After 2000 it appears it's happening continuously." - Jerry Harrison, National Weather Service - Charleston, SC

Jerry Harrison worked in Columbia's Weather Forecasting Office and worked around the clock as Hurricane Hugo struck. "We basically divided the staff in half. Half worked 6am to 6pm, and the other half worked from 6pm back to 6am."

The National Weather Service now is full of computers and satellite images; but it wasn't the same on that fateful night 15 years ago. "In 1989 around the middle of September, September 21st, basically we had what we call an old WSR-57 (WSR= Weather Service RADAR, & RADAR= Radio Detection and Ranging); which used some World War 2 technology."

Hugo Links

Eye Witness Acccount

National Hurricane Center: Hugo

Coastal Service Center Section

Washington Post 1989

Clemson University : Hugo

National Weather Service: Hugo

Storm Team 2 asked Jerry to give us a description of the equipment he used during Hurricane Hugo.

"We had old teletype machines we used to send information from one office to another. You could only get model data like 2 or 3 times a day. So you took it and you look at the old map and you kind of had to draw by hand what you thought it was going to do over the next 12 hours or so."

And then, how does today's technology differ?

"With the old WSR-57 RADAR it would not have been in color as this. You had to try to describe the various features without the well-defined color feature that we have here. The old RADAR was not Doppler in any sense. It did not have the features nor the ability to really look into the storm and see rotation."

With better equipment, we know more about each storm and can warn people of its danger; and hopefully more lives will be spared.

Harrison told us that Hurricane Hugo actually helped redefine what hurricanes can do to inland areas. Because of Hurricane Hugo, the National Weather Service developed "Inland Hurricane Wind Watches and Warnings." Reminding people that a hurricane's devastation is not confined just to the coast.