Early in the morning of February, U.S. Air Force pilot Nate Wardall took off from Yokota Air Base, west of Tokyo, Japan.
He was a storm tracker.
He flew through the turbulent air near Mount Fuji and out into the vast expanse of the blue Pacific Ocean.
His destination was the Japanese coast, where atmospheric rivers, known as atmospheric rivers, form after hot, dry spells that produce heavy rain.
Atmospheric rivers are formations of water vapor that are difficult to see in the sky. Wardall was looking for clouds moving eastward from the Pacific Ocean along the U.S. West Coast.