These Are Down Days.

No seriously. Today was a down day. It's actually the first down day we've had in quite some time! Starbucks and ice cream were consumed, card tricks were learned (sort of), and cars were pushed out of sand and into parking spaces. The life of a storm chaser is superbly glamorous. When we get time off, we flock to laundromats (and sit in piles of our dirty clothes on the way there).

It's awesome.

Tomorrow will be a non down hurryupandwait kind of day.

Rainbow Chasers (aka ‘The Ones That Got Away’).

In which borders are crossed, boundaries are overcome, and spectacular displays of light are witnessed.

The day started out as any other day. The alarm went off. A girl, presently on the morn of her twenty eighth birthday, silenced the incessant noise of the alarm and begrudgingly removed her feet from the soft, warm comfort of her bed and placed them upon the cold, hard, desolation of the hotel room floor. It was morning. Sleep was obligated to retire for the next several turns of the hourglass and make way for the day and its promise of productivity. There were things to be done.

Wait, I’m sorry. What am I doing? This is a blog, not a novel. (On a side note, I just got a call from the occupants of the awesome Probe 11, wishing me a happy birthday. Thank you Eric, Rachel, Carrie, and Eddy. Y’all rock. (On a side side note, I just got a call from my super cool friend Christy, wishing me a happy birthday. You rock, Christy.)) Anyway, today did start out like any other day on Vortex2. Shower, (pathetic) hotel breakfast, weather briefing, mad rush to get everything packed and ready (usually so we can sit in a hotel parking lot waiting for an hour or so with everything packed and ready)… then we head off to some target destination that usually changes at least once or twice (sometimes more!) during the drive. (On another side note (there are lots of side notes in this blog), we just got stopped by a constable on patrol, because he apparently could not see our license plate. As we do actually have a license plate, and our driver is an upstanding Dutch citizen who is legally authorized to be and drive in the States, the nice constable gave us neither ticket nor warning. I also just got a call from the fabulous Karen, first inquiring about why we were stopped on the side of the road and then wishing me a happy birthday. You rock, Karen.)

Today, all of the storm ingredients (like CAPE, helicity, large scale flow, and moisture) the atmosphere provided for our disposal were in the most favorable combination (for us) in southwestern Kansas and southeastern Colorado. As our hotel for the evening before was located in Ogalalalala, Nebraska, this translated into a bit of a late morning/early afternoon hike out of the state of corn and feed lots to many target destinations farther south. The Vortex2 people are very good at bringing us to where convection (well, storms) is (are) going to happen, but getting a large fleet of vehicles in the right place and at the right time to witness tornado formation is a bit trickier. Consequently. Probe 13 and nearly all of CSWR’s probe vehicles spent a good portion of the afternoon going back and forth between Kansas and Colorado on the orders of our esteemed leader (Josh Wurman) and the magical forecasting peoples (The FC). We spent so much time going back and forth between Colorado and Kansas though, that we missed an opportunity to catch a storm that parented a couple of tornadoes on the southern end of the weather system we were watching (we could have perhaps caught up to it, at the expense of our windshield). Insult was added to injury when we looked at the radar feed several minutes after it was determined that our probes could not get in good enough position to intercept our target storm and saw that the storm Vortex2 had initially been watching that day, but had left for more interesting options, had intensified and formed a perfect little (big) hook echo that parented what we are told were some very nice tornadoes. We just saw lots of precipitation. Hopefully the DOWs got some usable data And so the Vortex2 (the Verification of Ordinary Rain and Thunderstorms Experiment) continues…

We did, however, see several rainbows today.



The day’s first rainbow(s).



The day’s second rainbow(s).



Mallie upset about seeing only rainbows (and no tornadoes).



Alex looking at GR Level2 and the storm we should’ve stayed on all day, weeping softly and with tears in his eyes.

A Moment of Silence.

It is with deepest remorse that I must report the untimely passing of Probe 13's Hannah Montana sticker. The day was full of wind, rain, and hail. It is how the sticker would've liked to go.

Memorial service ongoing.

A Public Service Announcement.

Vortex2. Day: 19. (..... officially anyway.) Chase day: ihavenoidea. Golden Oreos with chocolate cream filling consumed: 4 (so far).

I shall type this straight away: Vortex2 likes people. Without people, Vortex2 would be a bunch of radars and trucks or minivans with weird looking things attached to their roofs sitting in a parking lot all day idling (wait... nevermind). Vortex2 likes people so much in fact that part of Vortex2's mission is to better understand tornadoes for the greater good of people. See, Vortex2 must be one of the most benevolent research projects ever! Wow!

Unfortunately the past couple of days have been a bit problematic for Vortex2, partially because people have come to shower Vortex2 and the storms it watches with as much love as Vortex2 has for people. It's like one big traffic ridden love fest! (Umm, that didn't come out right) As much as we all enjoy seeing people come out to say 'hi' while we're hanging out in parking lots or stopping for a quick bite to eat, it becomes hard to work when people do this during operations. It also tends to become hard to work when people see us and come out to see the storms we're trying to study. Please follow us on twitter, not in the field! Science ends up ultimately losing (no! not that! anything but that!), and it can be quite dangerous (unless, of course, these people enjoy having their windshields destroyed by hail... you know, whatever floats your proverbial boat...).

Anywho, today was a circus! (I'll say the TIV was like the elephant.) There was a clown (seriously, there was a clown walking around the hotel parking lot this morning), music (provided by the weather and the tornado sirens of western central Oklahoma), and a ringmaster (DOW7). There was a huge audience as well. The CSWR probes stopped to wait for instructions from our esteemed CSWR leaders (the magnificent Josh Wurnam and Karen Kosiba), and yours truly peered back behind the probes to see this sight:


I'm sure they are pleasant, well meaning folks. I then took a moment to perhaps grab a pretzel or sip some Perrier and looked back again to see this:


Holy shnikies, they multiplied! Are these individuals Vortex2/tornado paparazzi? There are times during Vortex2 when I feel like we're Lindsay Lohan's younger sister. Maybe that's not the best analogy, but it makes sense to me! There were so many fine young (and youngish) onlookers today and traffic was so bad on these poor little country roads that Vortex2 operations screeched to a halt for some teams. Our CSWR fleet ended up caught in a virtual parking lot of chasers while attempting to get ahead of an evolving supercell, and missed an opportunity to collect some potentially valuable data from a tornadic storm. Sadness. Vortex2 had to call off operations a short time later. Stop the madness! Help us help you!

Thankfully DOW7 was able to get out of traffic in time to observe this strange formation in the wake of the MCS (Mesoscale Convective System: code for big blob of rain) formed as the supercell of interest continued evolving:


... strange.

The 'T' Word.

Wow, it's late! Post 1am Central Time, actually. This means that the following blog update will proceed in bullet-ed form.

Monday-
~ Left hotel.
~ Ate lunch in park.
~ Waited around in park for interesting weather.
~ Almost got flung off a teeter totter in park waiting around for interesting weather.
~ Mildly injured right hand playing football in park waiting around for interesting weather.
~ Followed DOW7 as they left park.
~ Took transect of a little cell that appeared somewhat interesting on radar.
~ Ended up in Roswell, NM for dinner.
~ Narrowly escaped being abducted by aliens.
~ Rode back to different hotel in the jump seat of DOW6.
~ Someone in the front of DOW6 farted.
~ Thought aliens might smell better than the driver and navigator of DOW6.
~ Hotel. Sleep.

Obligatory weather shot. For the cloud newbies, these are called mammatus.

Extra-terrestrial or DOW6 operator? You decide.

Which brings us to....
Tuesday(!!)-
~ Waited around in parking lot for interesting weather.
~ Fixed problem child pod (Pod L) for the 2nd time.
~ Had lunch at hotel.
~ Tried golden Oreos with chocolate cream middles.
~ Forced myself to avoid eating more Oreos.
~ Followed DOW7 out of hotel.
~ Waited in another parking lot.
~ Moved from parking lot to side of road.
~ Waited on side of road with feet out the window.
~ Followed DOW7 to interesting weather.
~ zomg TORNADO (umm we pod people think)!
~ Aww tornado only lived a few seconds.
~ Deployed pods in pouring rain.
~ Picked up pods almost immediately in not so pouring rain.
~ Sat in wet clothing in car for quite some time.
~ Darkness falls.
~ zomg LIGHTENING (this I know for sure)!
~ Thought "they won't have us deploy pods anymore tonight."
~ Deployed pods 5 minutes after thinking "they won't have us deploy pods anymore tonight."
~ zomg TORNADO (umm we think with more certainty this time)!
~ Picked up pods in more rain.
~ Thought I probably ought to bring a dry pair of pants next chase day.
~ Are you still reading this?
~ Good for you!

Yeah, that about sums it up. A proper update may come later when I'm not thinking I really ought to get my sleep on.

There was actually a funnel cloud out there, behind my rain splattered window.

Storms have no respect for sunset. Geesh.

I call this one 'Pure Luck'.

Probe 13 Had (Has) a (Many) Problem (Problems).

Friday was a big(ish) chase day. It wasn’t necessarily big from the “omg lots of tornadoes!!!1!!111” standpoint, but our friendly neighborhood convection (read: storms) initiated early in the day and dumped a couple of tornadoes and copious amounts of rain on parts of northwest Texas before sunset. This meant that the Vortex2 crew was rushed out of its weather briefing before the noon hour and told to head to some undisclosed location in Texas (it’s undisclosed because I can’t precisely remember where we first went on Friday… Big Springs maybe? When you travel to multiple towns in rapid succession in a single day, their names become a blur).

Since all of this bustling about to escape from the hotel occurred around lunch time, most of CSWR took the liberty of stopping at a truck stop for a “catered lunch” (read: whatever our lovely friend Rachel purchased at Walmart that morning), and subsequently missed the opportunity to capture data on a tornado that had the audacity to form several miles away while the group was noshing on hummus and Oreos (not at the same time, eww). As our other lovely friend, Eric, has said: we were foiled by a turkey sandwich. None of this, however, mattered for Probe 13 because we had bigger problems. Our pods would not work! GASP!

As has been mentioned previously, CSWR operates 16 tornado pods out of its 6 probe vehicles, and each tornado pod holds 2 to 3 high definition video cameras and measures winds, temperature, and relative humidity. Meteorological data is collected once every second and stored on a little data logger that’s nestled in a big ugly yellow box on each pod. The stored data can then be downloaded when operations are done for the day and backed up elsewhere for safe keeping. Unfortunately, these data loggers have a battery, and batteries die. Probe 13 had the oldest pods in the CSWR pod fleet. This week we came to the realization that all of the Probe 13 pod batteries were (GASP!) as good as dead. (I’ll make the rest of the story short, I promise!)

So, while most of the CSWR crew was eating sandwiches with the semis at a truck stop somewhere in northwest Texas, the occupants of Probe 13 were at a local Radio Shack, cleaning the store out of its supply of asininely expensive 3.6 volt 1/2 AA batteries. Yours truly had the fabulous task of removing the ugly yellow box (attached to its pod by silicone-y goodness) and its nestled data logger from 2 of 3 Probe 13 pods, and replacing the inexplicably expensive 1/2 AA batteries. It took nearly all of the chase time, but ended up not being a problem since CSWR missed the tornado and did not deploy any pods. Thank goodness they were repaired in time for the Saturday trip to an unimpressive storm in eastern New Mexico!

(To be fair, it appears the only Vortex2 people who did actually see one of the Friday tornadoes saw it because they chose to stop for lunch at a McDonalds close to where the tornado decided it felt like spinning things up.)

Pod L has been repaired! (Note: Perrier is not a part of the pod, though I suppose it could be used as a way to gauge pressure. If I open the bottle and it explodes on me, I'll know the atmospheric pressure has gotten lower.)

In New Mexico, Probe 13 inhabitants and some Probe 12 NWS dude gaze at a rather pretty, but rather boring, tornado denying storm.

The flowers in New Mexico were pretty too. I think the state flower may be the oil well.

Success! Success?

Vortex2. Day 12. Chase day I'mnotsure. More storms. Oh yes, more storms.

(This lovely graphic here is from a cool place called the Storm Prediction Center. If you are not familiar with the SPC and you live anywhere that ever gets severe weather, I would recommend checking www.spc.noaa.gov on a regular basis to see if the SPC peoples advise you to be wary of atmospheric happenings.)

You see those red triangles over Oklahoma? CSWR got dual Doppler, dual polarization data from one of them (that's a fancy way of saying that DOW6 and DOW7 simultaneously scanned the storm from different locations with their fancy new radars that transmit in both the horizontal and vertical. The dual Doppler bit will allow some lucky scientists - or computer programs - to interpolate 3D winds for the storm, and the dual polarization bit will allow some other lucky scientists - or computer programs - to determine the shape and size of the particles within the storm). This is a first! Huzzah! The sad part is that it doesn't appear any CSWR individual actually saw the tornado. Nor was any pod data collected. That's right, the pod people were stationed close to an interesting part of the storm when it was noticed that radar data had indicated rather large hail coming our way. A big chunk of ice flung mercilessly from a storm cloud will win in a battle against an expensive meteorological instrument or an automobile windshield. The pod people were ordered slightly away from the storm, and ended up too far south to see the birth of a tornado. DOW5, CSWR's Rapid Scan DOW (so named because of it's ability to scan things really fast!), just so happens to be one of the fleet's slowest vehicles, and also missed ye ol' violently rotating column of air.

The pod people did, however, take some lovely cloud pictures...


See, how cool is that?

After the Storm.

Yesterday, there were tornadoes. While the events of May 10, 2010 may have come as a surprise to the many people whose lives were so greatly impacted (or, in the extreme cases, taken) by the weather that day, meteorologists knew of the increased probability of severe storms in the Great Plains several days in advance. What we didn’t know was where exactly it would happen, or when.

Tornadoes are such ephemeral phenomena that it will likely never be possible to make precise forecasts of tornadic activity even a day in advance. If, however, we can somehow gain a better understanding of tornado wind structure and how tornadoes form and evolve, it may be possible both to construct structures that are more able to withstand tornadic winds and to increase the amount of time during which people can take precautions and head to safety. Even a few short minutes will make a world of difference to many.

Yesterday was not a great day for Vortex2. The terrain we were located in was not horribly favorable for deployment, storms were moving almost too fast for our armada to chase, and communication problems plagued much of the day. We drove back that night through the debris, powerless to offer any further insight or relief. We feel deeply for all who suffered and lost that day.

Like those impacted, all we can do is try not to get discouraged, and hope that today will be a better day.

Driving back, after the rain, past Tecumseh, OK, which was closed off due to damage.

Another Introducion.

Happy Mother's Day, all of you mothers out there. Perhaps because it's Mother's Day, the Almighty Steering Committee decided that today should be a day of rest and travel (or, for the DOW people, a day of repair) in order to let us all prepare for the predicted Big Day of Ops tomorrow. Thank you, Almighty Steering Committee, for not sending us to Colorado before having us travel back to Oklahoma.

Since today was a down day, it's the perfect chance to introduce you to one of the most awesome members of the CSWR fleet. Meet Probe 13:

(Photo by Matt Rydzik)

Isn't she a beauty? I believe Probe 13's an early '90s Nissan Pathfinder, but I'm not really sure. She's old, she's ugly, and she gets less than 17 miles to the gallon. Yes folks, she seems to be almost universally revered.

Probe 13 isn't just a pretty piece of metal though, she's a genuine tool of scientific research. Probe 13 is part of CSWR's mobile mesonet and, courtesy of the instruments mounted on the mast attached to her roof, is able to measure and record temperature, relative humidity, wind speed, and wind direction. The mobile mesonets can then drive through storm environments and get an idea of what is going on before or while tornadoes form. Probe 13 also has space for three super special pods, which are each equipped with two HD video cameras and instruments to measure winds, temperature, and relative humidity. While the mobile mesonets give us data on the storm environment at around basketball hoop height, the pods give us data of the storm environment very close to the ground, and since they're pretty heavy (about 120 pounds each) and don't generally have people hanging around in them, they're able to actually be placed in what the DOW people think is the likely path of a tornado. Tornadoes are still mysterious little (big) phenomena, so it's rather convenient to have a piece of equipment that can take and record all of these measurements for us.

(Another photo by Matt Rydzik. Arrows pointing to Probe 13 pods by yours truly!)

Probe 13's also equipped with a brand new padlock (all of the locks on the doors won't unlock from the outside), and several snazzy stickers. I think this one might be my favorite:

On the Road Again (well, sort of...)

Greetings people and web spiders! In case you hadn't already heard, Vortex2 had its first deployment yesterday! (It's after midnight, so technically it was the day before yesterday.) The only moderately "exciting" part of the Vortex2 domain yesterday was in Kansas, so we loitered around our hotel parking lot for several hours before deciding to deploy to an area in northwestern Kansas that forecasters thought might experience some storms. And it did experience storms! Little ones. We saw a bit of rain and some pea to dime sized hail while we deployed our 16 120 pound pods roadside in a somewhat orderly fashion and drove away, but it was relatively dry when we drove back a few short minutes later to collect the pods and determine we were hungry and in need of dinner.

It was short and sweet.

Since there was no real expectation of a tornado during operating hours yesterday, this first deployment was deemed a practice. Overall, it appears to have gone relatively well (except that a couple probe vehicles and a media vehicle from one of the teams got stuck in the mud). CSWR still has a few kinks that it needs to work out, but that's what this weekend's for! Right? (For the record, there was a tornado reported near the area we deployed yesterday, but it occurred after operations had ceased. Post deployment, a severe storm chased us back to our hotels, and blasted our vehicles with high winds, dust, and debris while they were sitting in the parking lot.)

Sadly, I have no photos from our operations yesterday (I was deploying pods out of Probe 13 instead of taking pictures), but I do have some pretty cool shots from the wind farm that DOW7, DOW5, and a couple probe vehicles visited today on the way to our brand spankin' new "conditions are not conducive to storm development, but we need somewhere to sleep" location!




They look so tiny by comparison... Ever wonder what would happen if you started scanning with a DOW that close to a wind turbine? I can tell you that it would probably be something that would not make Josh Wurman (or the DOW) very happy.

I see DOW people.

Strangers in the Niiiiiight

Greetings, blog world. Since the last update, the [almost entire] Vortex2 crew of 100+ personnel (including Chase, the tornado chasing wonderdog) reunited for the first all hands meeting in Woodward, KS. After depleting the town's supplies of Wagg's fries, Perrier, and bubble wrap (and determining that severe weather would likely not be occurring in or near Woodward in the immediate future), the V2 armada packed up and sailed (well, drove) off to the wilds of Kansas. After being in this new location for a few short hours, it appears that the V2 crew has depleted the town's supply of tortilla chips (it is, after all, Cinco de Mayo) and will therefore likely be departing at some reasonably early hour tomorrow in search of Tostitos. As there appears to be some chance of stormy weather in the Great Plains in the coming day or so, Vortex2 is planning to be in operations mode on the morrow.

Though the weather has not been overly exciting for the first few days of this phase of the project, that does not mean that the V2 crew is sitting by the pool sipping margaritas! Look at these folks, hard at work in the late hours of the night! One of the DOWs has a broken magnetron (aka thingamagig) that is actually quite important to the operation of the radar, and it had to be replaced this evening.


It's a little known fact, but this photo clearly shows that many of the CSWR crew are actually extraterrestrials. How else would one explain the strange glow coming from their foreheads? (Telling you that they are wearing headlamps would be far less exciting.)


See, it's weird.

Ops tomorrow...

An Introduction

This is Scout Bear. It may really be Scout Cat, but in all honesty, it's pretty hard to tell. He/she/it was taped to the mast of CSWR's Probe 13 during the 2009 chase season. Whether he/she/it will remain taped to the mast of CSWR's Probe 13 this season [intact] is yet unknown.

Yo Oklahoma.

Bonjour, mes amis. Two posts in one day. How about that?

Yesterday, we arrived in a quaint little town in Kansas, and were told that there was a 90% chance we would be there for two nights. We were a little surprised, but not horribly shocked, when we were told the next morning we'd be rolling out of Kansas that afternoon and heading to Oklahoma. Parking lot repairs/maintenance of the DOWs and a probe continued until early this evening, but a select few probes were given leave to depart early for the big OK.

Six of us squished into one of CSWR's roomier probes and decided to make a pit stop at Oklahoma's Fort Supply Lake (we saw a dust devil and a fire on the way). The sky blessed us with a few moments of sun before it decided to totally cover itself with clouds and turn an otherwise pleasant day into a windy, chilly one, so our stay at Fort Supply Lake was short and sweet.

The day's almost done. Tomorrow we get up early and head out to another part of the Great Plains of the United States of America. Maybe DOW5 will make it here by then.

Scout returns from a Walmart run. Notice the bear taped to the mast.

Meanwhile, DOW6 (with the white beeeeehind) and DOW7 (looking pretty in blue) party in the hotel parking lot while scientists, engineers, and menial labor (ie grad students) try to get them functioning to the best of their abilities.

Fort Supply Lake. It was lovely.

Yo Kansas.

Welcome, ladies and gentlehooves, to the first official official post of this here Vortex2 blog. If you are reading this, I shall assume that you already know what Vortex2 is. If you are not reading this and can still see what I’ve written, I shall assume that you are psychic and can use your mystic powers to discover what Vortex2 is. As neither of these assumptions, however, have been scientifically tested, I suppose a brief description of Vortex2 is in order:

Vortex2 (or the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment, part 2) is the itsy bitsy (ok, huge) effort of a few (well, a lot) of scientists to look at what goes on exactly goes on at the lowest levels in tornadoes. This is where tornadoes are most damaging (it’s where there is stuff to damage), but it’s also where tornadoes are least understood, because our trusty nationwide network of Doppler radars simply can’t “see” this area.

And *poof* that’s been taken care of.

Vortex2’s CSWR contingent is composed of a bunch of zany/cool people from all over America and Europe who will be operating 3 mobile Doppler radars/Dopplers on Wheels (DOWs) and 4 mobile mesonet vehicles, and deploying 16 rather heavy pods (both the pods and mesonets measure things like wind, temperature, and humidity). The goal is to take these things to severe weather happenings within the Vortex2 domain, collect a bunch of data, and analyze it to find out previously unknown things about tornadoes and tornado producing storms.

CSWR’s Vortex2 kicked off several days ago at the CSWR hangar in Boulder, CO. After several days of packing, fixing radars, moving stuff around the hangar so the resident airplanes could exit, and making sure all of the pods and mesonets and their data connections are functional, we’ve left Boulder and landed in the good ol’ state of Kansas with the cows and the corn. Hopefully we won't be experiencing any snow in the Great Plains (like we did in Boulder). Repairs and fine tuning shall continue in hotel parking lots until the weather (or restlessness) pulls us away…

Purdue people and a non Purdue person (we'll forgive him) hang out by a V2 probe at the CSWR hangar in Boulder.
PS- Some other Vortex2 blogs/picture pages of note:
http://everyday-is-windsday.blogspot.com (courtesy of Mallie)http://rydzblog.com (courtesy of Matt)http://tornadoscientists.blogspot.com (courtesy of Karen and CSWR)http://vortexjeff.shutterfly.com (courtesy of Jeff)