A new paper by a team of scientists, led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), demonstrates that observations just above the surface of the ocean near the eyewall of the storm can improve the performance of hurricane models used by forecasters. Scientists in 2017 and 2018 flew the Coyote uncrewed aircraft into hurricanes Maria and Michael, two of the most powerful Atlantic basin hurricanes on record. The uncrewed aerial system (UAS) measured atmospheric conditions as low as 360 feet above the water and winds of up to 194 miles per hour.
You can read the UCAR/NCAR News article at https://news.ucar.edu/132703/new-frontier-hurricane-observations, and the article on the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society at https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0169.1.