Peter Dodge, a meteorologist who flew in hurricanes on “Miss Piggy,” a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration P-3 Orion, dropped his ashes into the eye of Hurricane Milton as it approached Florida.
Dodge was a NOAA meteorologist for 44 years and died in 2023. NOAA hurricane hunters dropped his ashes in Milton’s Eye on Tuesday in tribute to his life studying powerful tropical storms.
“Peter truly had an unyielding passion for participating in field activities, including flying, and an insatiable curiosity for research,” Shirley Murillo, deputy director of NOAA’s hurricane research division, said in a statement. “By releasing his ashes into Hurricane Milton, we sought to honor his memory and his spirit of teamwork, adventure and curiosity.”
Related: Florida is beginning to estimate the devastation from Hurricane Milton at 3 million people without power
Dodge, a native of Florida, served as a shipboard radar scientist during hurricane hunter missions. He had advanced expertise in radar technology and coordinated with research landing teams to collect data with mobile weather platforms.
Michael Lowry, a hurricane specialist and storm surge expert at WPLG in Miami, wrote on
“PETER DODGE HX SCI (1950-2023) 387TH PENNY,” it read, with “387th” referring to the number of his flights. Lowry called the spreading of the famed meteorologist’s ashes in Milton’s eye and the data message a “beautiful tribute.”
Among Dodge’s contributions was an academic paper on Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and caused $125 billion in damage, which modeled forces associated with wind, waves and storm surges to better understand the performance of flood control systems .
Over the course of his career, Dodge received numerous awards from NOAA, the Department of Commerce and the Army Corps of Engineers.
Comments in honor of Dodge poured in on social media on Tuesday and Wednesday. “Quite a tribute to a man who dedicated his life to studying these storms,” Miami-based Fox 8 reported.
