On the Road Again...

Greetings, e-people. Welcome to the blog post. It’s now Saturday, 5 May 2012. After days (and nights, for some) of intense preparation, the ROTATE armada left its Boulder hangar home during the earlier hours of this morning. Initial target: Eastern Nebraska. Vehicle status: somewhat operational.

** Break for DOW7 story time and a history lesson on I-80 and the Platte River **

Speaking of DOW7, I suppose I could introduce you to the ROTATE armada. Out for CSWR this season are:

DOW7. The DOW in charge. It’s a dual polarization radar. It’s also responsible for story time and history lessons. It was formerly responsible for the puns. (We miss you Jeff!)

DOW6. Also a dual pol radar. Former seat of Justin Walker and his banjo. We miss you Justin!

DOW8. The New oldKid on the Block. DOW8 is a rapid scan radar (read: it scans things fast!), and used to be DOW5. Like a phoenix, it rose triumphantly from the dilapidated remains of the DOW5 chassis.

Scout1. It’s new, it’s blue.

Scout2. It’s new, but not blue.

Scout3. Formerly Probe11. It’s most definitely not new.

Scout4. Formerly Probe12. Home of yours truly for the next three weeks. It’s full of dog fur. Not that that’s a bad thing…

Scout5. The cargo van. It’s very very important; it lugs around all of our food, supplies, and suitcases.

Scout6. Formerly Probe14. Also known as “White Lightning.” This is Tim Marshall’s domain. Need I say more?

The MORC. Nanoo Nanoo.

(I’m kidding, I’m kidding. The MORC was the MOC, or Mobile Office Center, before they added in an ‘R,’ which stands for something that is escaping me at the moment. The MORC is a big, white Mercedes Benz, and was literally created to be a mobile office. Due to the awkward weight distribution in the MORC, it is practically incapable of driving in a straight line.)

M1. It has a puppy. She’s adorable. M1 makes a lot of pit-stops. For the adorable puppy.


And that’s it. All of the DOWs have radars (of course). All of the Scout vehicles have mesonets and tornado pods… each Scout vehicle, with the exception of Scout5, has four tornado pods capable of measuring temperature, humidity, wind speed, and wind direction (Scout5 has two pods). So, that should be twenty two pods total. If we’re successful, some of these pods will be placed in the path of a tornado, and will collect data on that tornado at ground level, where scientific data on tornadoes is rather sparse. This data can then be used, in collaboration with the dual Doppler radar data we hopefully also collect, to better understand what exactly is going on in a tornado at the ground level. Pretty cool, eh?

PS- … we miss you Justin!!