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The Global Hawk is America’s fanciest surveillance drone. Built for heights of up to 60,000 feet, the Global Hawk can scan an entire battlefield below with radar, infrared and regular cameras, and tools to pick up on electronic communications. Remotely piloted, the Global Hawk can change crews in the middle of its flights and multiple times, which is good, because it can fly for up to 34 hours continuously. Unless, of course, there’s inclement weather.

Stars and Stripes recently published a report about conditions affecting the drones:

While the weather appeared calm for August 1st, when the Global Hawks were expected to land on Guam, there are storms expected all this week. The National Weather Service issued a warning of “Monsoonal Conditions,” and there are gale conditions in the nearby Marianas islands.

Once in the air, aerospace defense corporation Northrop Grumman notes that the Global Hawk’s “cloud-penetrating, day or night, sensor package can image an area the size of the U.S. state of Illinois (40,000 nautical square miles) in just 24 hours.” But it needs to be in the air first, and it looks like the risks of taking off in stormy weather are too great for a plane with a cost in the tens of millions of dollars.