be the waves that s the big problem. we re starting to find winds, mid-level winds and surface winds are blowing in the same direction. instead of creating a crisscross pattern. when they go in the same direction it s a wave problem. we had nine aircraft yesterday, four helicopters five fixed wings intermittent flights. not just the search area we re concerned about you got a broad area and in one position or one city where there s a staging ground such as in this case it s going to cause problems. when we look at the region of indonesia there s differences in the rainfall this time of the year from south even up to the north. typically across the region it s december. that is the worst month. let s go to the south. let s go to surabaya. december. pretty good amount of rainfall. but it gets worse in january, february and march. the dry season isn t until july. if we go the north, get closer to the equator, closer to our search zone area. because it s on the equator they
for 30 years, also president of kit darby. in seattle rob mccollum back with me. ocean search specialist and search expedition leader. okay, gentlemen. as you just saw this great technology, cutting edge technology with this ship and with the u.s. pinger on board, there s a lot of hope. rob, the point can t be overstated if you don t have the impact zone located, then some of that technology cannot be put to its best use. what is the greatest hope from the ship once it arrives in the search zone area on thursday. there s not a lot of hope as you heard the leader saying. they have to be on top of the wreckage, the black box not to hear it. the pingers designed to locate it black box in the wreckage zone.
to move out of the region. so what they re dealing with is just getting to the aircraft at this hour. we know there are storms rolling through the region, but the satellite perspective very quiet over much of australia. but shift your attention to the south midwest of the southern tip of australia, you see an elongated feature. that s a nice sign of a cold front. keep in mind, this is the first day of autumn, or fall across the southern hemisphere. bringing in the search zone area, where they re headed out to, you see the front beginning to exit the region. beyond this, the weather will improve over the next couple of days. one thing to keep in mine, sailors know all about this region because of the winds that park in place and the 40-degree latitudenal mark. the sailors called this the roaring 40s. then the serious 50s, the screaming 60s, all of this based
on the winds in this region worldwide. the sailors use this route, but you look at the weather pattern. clouds in the area, thunderstorms possible, but scattered in the region. rain fall minimal, but the concern is gusty winds. as high as 55 to 60 kilometers per hour. so tropical storm force winds in this region over the next couple of days. just switching the routers and showing you where the storm system is, where the satellite pings were and the search system coming down from the southern arc. you see the storm system, the only weather maker in this part of the world, happens to be located on the northern fringe of the search zone. so it s beginning to exit, but it will make it treacherous for the officials out there to see what they can spot below. so many people waiting on the information from those planes.
objects. they re big, but at this stage, we won t know what they are, at least from satellite pictures, at least until commercial satellites have retuned on that area. they ll provide much more high resolution pictures than the pictures now being released from the australian satellite intelligence community, which has sparked this whole move in the first place. immediately, now, how much daylight is left for the search to continue? and bigger picture, what is the time frame here on getting some confirmation one way or the other? well, it will take as long as it takes, john. they have another five or so hours of daylight. so the briefing from the maritime officials were warning we may not get anything today. there may be no visual sighting. but the time frame is really best captured by the fact that the beacons, which would indicate where the plane is, at least where parts of the plane are, the search beacons, have a