Tracking the weather is more important than ever now that we're seeing record breaking storms nearly every year. According to Climate Central, the number of weather incidents causing more than a billion dollars of damage has jumped from approximately three per year in the 1980s to close to 20 events per year over last five years. For the past two years, that number has spiked to 28 and 27.

With that in mind, storm chasers obviously want to choose the best kind of plane to handle the job, and guess what? That's not some sort of high-tech jet. Most weather planes these days still rely on propellers -- turboprops, to be exact.

Now, turboprop planes generally fly slower, lower, and with less range than jets, but none of that usually matters when you're hunting hurricanes and the like. In fact, a slower speed is an advantage because a weather plane needs to maximize its time inside the storm to gather data, not zip right through it at a high speed or, like Spirit Airlines, fly over a hurricane.

As for altitude and range, turboprops actually perform better and more efficiently than jets at lower heights, where the action is, and their ability to take off and land in small airports or grassy fields outweighs their shorter ranges since not all hurricanes and storms take place near a convenient, jet-friendly airport with concrete runways.