back to nebraska...

The past few days have been quiet weatherwise. Unfortunately I don't have any new pictures although the mesonet crew did get some press. After taking some time off Wednesday in Norman to do some laundry and get the oil changed in our probes, the V2 armada headed North to Topeka, KS.

In Topeka we got some great BBQ at a place called Boss Hawgs. Given the lack of weather and things to do in Topeka, we took two probes out to the local movie theater to see Angels and Demons. It was a good movie, but not nearly as good as the book. We later returned to the parking lot to discover our probes had been tagged by some locals with nothing better to do, then spent some time at the hotel bar.

The next day (yesterday) broke many records, but not good ones. Conditions were marginal (and i mean marginal) for supercells to develop over central Nebraska, so we hit the road fast from Topeka and chased after them. After a few hours of driving we finally caught up with a developing storm 30 miles south of the South Dakota border, but by the time we got there it was already weakening. When we completed a few transects of the storm with our probe, we decided to cut our losses and head home, possibly intercepting another storm on the way. However, local law enforcement had other plans. The probe i was driving, as well as probe 1 behind me were pulled over by the local sheriff for speeding. Though we got off with a warning, we soon learned that ben's probe (p5) and several other vehicles had also been pulled over by the same cop.

After the slight delay we drove south to Grand Island, where we had been earlier that day to spend the night in the local holiday inn. Overall, we were told the trip was over 600 miles- a V2 daily mileage record, with a record number of police encounters. All for a rainshower....

Today is a down day and tonight we will have a review of our missions and data collected so far as well as have a mid-experiment meeting to discuss how things have been going so far with each group. We'll stay here tonight, then either head towards minnesota and eastern South Dakota, or down to the Texas panhandle for operations tomorrow or monday. Overall , the weather pattern is looking a lot better for severe weather so we should see something good in the upcoming week.
In the meantime we've been having lots of fun visiting local restraunts and bars. Our trip coordinator has managed to get us into great hotels and usually lands us free drinks at the hotel bars we go to. We've also been getting to know our new mesonet navigators. Replacing harald in our probe is Kiel Ortega - an NSSL employee from OU.

We've also gotten some attention from the weather channel for our probe mascots ,that resulted in a piece aired last night featuring me, as well as all the other probe drivers which you can see at:

http://www.weather.com/multimedia/videoplayer.html?from=email&bcpid=823425597&bclid=877032950&bctid=24756145001

That's all for now, sorry for the lack of anything too excting, but things are like that lately.

"You guys might want to put your glasses on"

Greetings from Norman, OK!

The past two days have been "GO" days for vortex 2, and we have largely continued our streak of killing storms wherever we go. However, yesterday provided the most interesting storm intercept so far.

On Monday, Memorial Day, we chased several storms in SW Oklahoma and North Texas. Unfortunately, each of the 3 storms we followed died when we got there or shortly before. The end result was a 450 mile drive that returned us near our starting position in Childress Texas. While most people we pass fear for their safety in the face of oncoming storms, we've grown used to telling them that they are in no harm since storms tend to die as we approach. While frustrating, it is still very exciting and we see some spectacular sunsets as a result.

Sunset behind an anvil

The lack of action changed yesterday. We drove Eastward from Childress towards an area of high CAPE (convective available potential energy, which is an index of the amount of buoyant energy in the air) and very high dewpoints. With surface temperatures near 90 and dewpoints it was very very humid. We spent most of the afternoon and evening in Gainesville, TX (just north of Dallas) waiting for the first storm to go up. I was anticipating a good chance of tornadoes as my advisor said "we'd have to be stupid not to see a tornado today". (note the ironic foreshadowing) Eventually a storm did go up just West of Ft. Worth. Because dallas/ft. worth has the worst traffic next to LA in the US and it was rushour, we had no hope of chasing a storm moving over that area. We stayed north hoping that another storm would initiate closer to our position in more favorable chase terrain. After an hour or two we realized that the dallas storm was our only option so we moved towards it, hoping to catch it as it moved out of the urban area.

Near Witchita Falls we saw a few wild camels along the road.

However, on our way, the storm split and sent an left moving storm off to the north of the main right mover. The left-mover had an anticyclonic (clockwise) rotation and a hook echo. Most supercell storms have a cyclonic, or counter-clockwise rotation. The left mover soon became the dominant storm which is very uncommon as the left mover usually dies in preference to the right-mover. We chased the left-mover near Decatur, TX (to the northwest of Ft. Worth). Inside the storm we encountered golfball and larger sized hail. While we measured 1.75" hail, larger hail soon hit us that we suspect was over 2 inches in diameter. This prompted Harald to put on his goggles and encouraged us to put on our sunglasses just incase of a windshield crack.

Rising scud into the left-moving anticyclonically rotating updraft.

Some hailstones we collected.

The storm became very ominous looking with rising scud, however outflow overran the circulation and prevented it from ever dropping a tornado. It soon turned dark while we were under the storm so operations were called off. However, on our way out we somewhat accidentally ended up right underneath the heart of the circulation, where a tornado would drop in the now-cyclonic circulation of over 60 m/s (150 mph) wind shear aloft. Fortunately for us, the DOWs reported the circulation was well above us and had no hope of reaching it to the surface. Otherwise, it would have been very unsafe to be where we were, especially at night. Overall, we got very good data with 6 radars and around 10 mesonet probes, making this the most extensively studied left mover ever.

WSR-88D velocity mode, showing a cyclonic couplet with TVS (tornado vortex signature, pink wedge) just above our position (circle).

After we left the storm we moved north to Norman, OK for the night and got a spectacular lightning show behind us as we drove. Today we hung out in Norman for a down day with no VORTEX2 related operations going on because of calm weather. I took today as a chance to get some laundry done at the local laundromat, and Kevin and I got an oil change for our probe since it's gone over 5000 miles in the past few days. The off day is a great chance to relax since we've been putting in 14 hour days and over 500 mile drives per day in lately. Tonight we hope to head into OKC for some dinner and then visit the local bars with some of the OU grad students on V2. Today also marks the last day on the trip for our navigator Harald Richter, who will be replaced by an OU grad student in our probe. He was a great guy to have around and a great resource for questions that kevin and I fired at him. The weather channel did a special on him yesterday that featured him and our probe, so look for him, probe 3, and kevin and I on TV tonight or tomorrow.

Tomorrow we're heading north into eastern Kansas, and will likely use the next two days for travel and a mid-experiment discussion and review. The next chase day looks to be Saturday in the Missouri and Mississippi river valleys as we finally get into a much better pattern for severe weather and tornadoes.

It's hard to believe that there are only 2 weeks left in the experiment, and we haven't even seen a tornado yet. This looks to change in the upcoming week though as conditions improve. We're all losing track of the days of the week and are in a state of constant exhaustion from the driving. However, if you ask anyone out here (including me) they'll tell you we're having the time of our lives!

I'll have the Texas...

The past few days have proven uneventful for the V2 team. On Friday, we chased a few mountain driven convective cells from one side of the black hills to the other to no avail. After waiting in the parking lot for several hours we moved west, only to move east, then back to the parking lot. During downtimes there is a lot of frisbee, football, and baseball played while we wait around with instructions or for a target to develop. The highight of the day was a staged photo shoot of the mobile mesonets for the IMAX film crew. When we returned, as a thanks Sean Casey (the guy who drives the TIV on stormchasers) shared a case of beer with us. Later that night we enjoyed a local restaurant in Hot Springs where I had an excellent prime rib, and a nice beer called Moose Drool.

Part of the armada waiting in the hotel parking lot in Hot Springs, SD

The Imax film crew, these guys are borderline insane.

The next day(yesterday) we headed south again back through Alliance and Ogallala to chase a few storms that had a marginal chance of becoming supercellular. The FC (Field Coordinator) vehicle was short a navigator so i had a chance to hope on board that vehicle (basically a converted ambulance) for the day. The FC is essentially the mobile headquarters for V2 and takes care of communications and organizing the deployment of different teams on a target storm. While the storm we chased never turned out to be a supercell, in the FC we had some excellent views and i had an opportunity to see how decisions are made out in the field and get a new perspective of the project.

The FC vehicle

The view of a storm from the FC vehicle on Saturday.

After spending the night in North Platte, NE it was soon apparent that we were going to have little luck remaing up north. With the jet stream in Canada and little moisture and no energy over the northern and central plains, the decision was made to head south. Far South. Today we drove from North Platte, to Amarillo, TX; a 500 mile drive that took approximately 9 hours. I navigated for the FC again today, which is much less exciting on a travel day than during a deployment. On the way to Amarillo we accidentally came upon a fairly strong storm with lots of scud and a lowered shelf like cloud. It was an outflow dominated storm with no rotation so there was no hope of a tornado, but it was still very cool looking.

Ominous looking outflow, really not much of anything but you could imagine a tornado dropping out of it.

Once in Amarillo, we had dinner at The Big Texan, a famous steakhouse whose claim to fame is the "free 72 ouncer" -- a 72 oz. steak that is free if eaten in under an hour. Trying to avoid a nasty car ride tomorrow i opted out of the challenge. Instead I had an excellent steak and tried some fried okra for the first time. I came to the conclusion that all fried food really tastes the same so it was nothing special.

Outside The Big Texan

Tomorrow looks to be a "go" day with the chance for both CAPE over 1000 j/kg and shear maybe getting close to 30 kts. We can only hope for a supercell and maybe, just maybe a tornado either tomorrow or tuesday!

Make like the pioneers and spread out.

Following the lead of the Pioneers, V2 has been travelling along the route of the old Oregon Trail. Yesterday we moved northwest from Ogallala to Alliance, Nebraska. In the afternoon the fleet massed in a small park in Hemmingford, NE awaiting the development of storms. Due to weak shear, we had little expectation of any supercells, much less tornadoes. After some initial development to the SW, we decided to get ahead of a developing cell by travelling an hour to the East. Our movement put us in the Sand hills of Nebraska, which have a poor road network and little visibility for our mobile radars. Since the storm was less than thrilling we decided to call of operations for the day as we headed back to our hotel in Alliance.

However, mother nature was not finished with us yet. On the way back to the hotel, the field cooridnator noticed a developing low precipitation supercell a few miles north of Alliance, so we decided to pursue given it was the most promising storm ofo the day. We managed to deploy our mesonets throughout the storm, noticing some relatively strong inflow. Some scud clouds developed travelling into the updraft base, eventually forming a transitory non-rotating wall cloud (a lowered portion of the cloud base, usually the location of a tornado). Rotation in the storm was fairly weak, so we had no anticipation of a tornado. However, a wall cloud is a good sign and would be the immediate precursor to a tornado if one had formed. The storm developed quite rapidly and did a few transects of what somewhat resembled a rear flank downdraft. In one of our transects we intersected some pea-sized hail. Eventually the storm progressed to the East but owing to no east-west road options we could not pursue and ended operations. The storm soon dissipated following our data collection. Travelling back to Alliance we were treated to a few rainbows and interesting cloud formations.

Scud getting drawn into the inflow eventually formed a transient non-rotating wall cloud.

Given the low expectations of the morning, the evening supercell was quite a surprise to most of us and left us in good spirits heading into today. However, this morning showed no signs of anything severe, so we decided on no operations for the day and just travel north to position for possible data collection tomorrow. With a destination in Hot Springs, South Dakota only 2 hours to the North of Alliance, we had time to enjoy some of local culture.

At times Storm chasing is very exciting, like last night, but at other down times it can border on painfully boring. It's a hurry up and wait game with lots of time to meet fellow chasers. In order to relieve some of today's boredom the mesonets decided that each of our probes needed more character. As a result, we made a stop to the Alliance Dollar General to each purchase a mascot for our probe. For probe 3, kevin and i selected a Mr. Potato head in a spider man costume that Ben affetionately dubbed "Spider Spud." Other mascots include Probe 4 (the party probe)'s dancing and singing stuffed lobster, Probe 7's armadillo, and Probe 5's toad. Spider Spud proudly sits on our dashboard as we drive giving us a thumbs up on overhead clearance. Harald, Kevin, and myself have taken to photographing Spider Spud at different locations along our journey (much like the Croslands and ET).

Later in the day on our way to Hot Springs, we took a stop at CarHenge as well as an interesting "rest area". We arrived in Hot Springs in the early afternoon. Hot Springs is a nice little tourist town in the Black Hills of SW South Dakota making for some nice hilly and forrested scenery compared to the flat plains we are used to. Because we were conducting no operations, many of the team decided to take a short trip North to see Mt. Rushmore. On the way we passed through several state and national parks and saw a load of native wildlife including prarie dogs, antelope, white tail deer, pheasants, and Buffalo. Mt. Rushmore itself was worth the trip and is very visually stunning, even from several miles away.

Spider Spud enjoying the sites at Mt. Rushmore (yeah, we were bored that day)

As we move through numerous tiny towns out here on the plains, I find that we are somewhat celebrities. Invariably, wherever we stop we are likely to interact with some curious locals. Most locals give us one of two reactions. The first being shear panic and the question of "is there something going on we should know about?" The other being "I've loved tornadoes all my life and can I come with you?" Yesterday in Hemmingford the entire nearby elementary school seemed to take a break to come out and look at our vehicles, while we were personally interviewed at brunch this morning by a curious diner cashier. While chasing yesterday afternoon, a cop stopped by the mesonet convoy asking if he needed to set off the tornado siren or if he would be pelted with hail on his motorcycle. Overall, people seem to be supportive of what we do and wish us luck, while others clearly seem to wish we would just get out of town. Though we may not be seeing storms, we're certainly helping out some local economies with bars running out of beer, and waitresses making extraordinary tips.

That's all for now, sorry about the lack of pictures, but the hotel's internet is too busy to upload them right now, so i'll add them as time permits. Tomorrow looks to be pretty quiet with a marginal chance for operations in eastern Wyoming or farther east along the Nebraska/South Dakota border. In the long term, it looks as if there's a chance we may be headed south again. Texas anyone?

The weather pattern isn't cooperating but morale remains high as we've adopted the motto: "He who has no expectations is never dissapointed"

Ogallala, Nebraska

Greetings from the Mountain Time Zone!

Yesterday, the fleet moved north from Hays, Kansas to a small town in Western Nebraska called Ogallala. In order to meet up with them, Kevin and I hitched a ride North with an OU undergrad who is a member of the support team for one of the DOWs (doppler on wheels). After driving 20 hours to OKC, the 9 hour drive to Nebraska felt like nothing.

When we pulled into the parking lot of the Best Western we're all staying at, we were greeted with a meteorologist's paradise of radar trucks, mobile mesonets, and sounding vehicles. After meeting up with Paul and Yvette (our advisers) to get up to speed, we prepared for a chance to chase today.

In front of my home for the next 4 weeks: Probe 3 (the snack probe)

The TIV2 (tornado intercept vehicle) in the parking lot. You might recognize it from the show "storm chasers"

Two of the DOWs parked in the hotel parking lot.

At this morning's 10am weather briefing we got our plan of departing for the panhandle of nebraska in order to chase some weak storms in the hopes of maybe catching a microburst. Because our depart time was not until 2, this gave a few of us mesonet drivers time to experience the town we had lunch at an old diner and found a huge lake to walk around for a while:

the diner we had lunch in, and downtown Ogallala

Finally at 2 we headed out to Sidney, NE to deploy on some developing cumulonimbus clouds that gave us a little hope for at least a microburst (which is a strong gust of wind brought on by rapidly sinking air that falls as precipitation cools it). Unfortunately, ridiculously low dewpoints caused the storms to have high cloud bases, which made tornadoes all but impossible. What we did find were a few gusts of wind up to 44 mph , which blew up some dust in places. Overall, while the storms were less than exciting, it gave the team a chance to work out some kinks in our deployment strategies while collecting some potentially useful data.

our first look at the storm as we approached. It had a really high cloud base, so no expectation of anything tornadic.

It also gave Kevin and I our first experience chasing a storm. Each probe (we're in probe 3) has a sophisticated GPS equipped computer system that allows us to monitor the position of every other vehicle while seeing radar and road networks. It also enables us to message other vehicles and recieve instructions from our team leader. Data collection essentially involves driving 20 miles, then turning around and doing it again in order to get a sampling of the meteorological variables across a storm.

some virga (precipitation that doesn't reach the ground) from our target with windmills

Wednesday looks to be slightly more promising, with the chance for a severe storm or two although tornadoes are still unlikely. In all likelyhood we'll be moving North again into some desolate areas of northwestern Nebraska. Regardless, it seems like we'll finally get out of Ogallala which makes no one happy because we have a nice hotel with a hot tub here.

While spirits are somewhat low here because of the low probabilities of tornadoes over the next week, I can't help but be excited for being part of such a large group of people devoted to the weather even if we're only chasing showers.

If you think Virginia is long, try driving across Missouri...

We're here! (almost)

After Friday's graduation ceremonies and a day of goodbyes on Saturday, Kevin and I finally departed for VORTEX2. We left State College around 4:30 on Saturday afternoon after picking up a rented car from the airport. Throughout western PA we ran into a few squall lines and weak thunderstorms. While these were wimpy compared to what we will likely see in the coming weeks, it may be the closest we get to a thunderstorm for a few days (more on that to come). Below is a picture of the drive through the Alleghenies, showing one of the storms ahead: After driving 8 hours, we arrived in Indianapolis shortly after midnight where we slept a few hours before continuing. The next morning we departed for OKC. With a little re-arrangement of our plans, we soon learned we'd be heading to a hotel in Oklahoma City as opposed to Norman. The drive in total took approximately 20 hours and over 1200 miles across ohio, indiana, illinois, missouri, and oklahoma. Kevin and I arrived in Oklahoma City around 6pm and enjoyed the last out of the local minor league baseball team and some dinner at a local microbrewery. We then exchanged our rental car with some shady dealings and free shuttle exchanges at the airport for a ride to tonight's hotel. Overall, the trip was much faster and less exhausting than either of us expected.

So what happened to the V2 crew while we were driving out here? Friday afternoon (operations day 4) was a "GO" day. The armada deployed on a line of storms in Northwest Oklahoma. Apparently one storm displayed a brief funnel cloud, but chasing was forced to a halt by dark. The target storm then preceded to develop a tornado shortly after dark near Oklahoma City, unfortunately unsampled by V2.

This weekend has been calm in the great plains, and looks to continue that way through much of this week. After Friday's action, the armada moved to a location in central Kansas, in the middle of our operating domain to wait out the clear skies. The reason for the fair (and boring) weather is a prominent ridge that is building over the middle US, and looks to stick around through this week. The map below shows an upper air map forecast for Tuesday (upper right), showing the ridge over the plains. (If you're not too familiar with meteo, the ridge is the hump in the black height lines on the map below, more ideal conditions would have a dip or trough in these lines moving through the 4 corners region).

Tomorrow Kevin and I will be picked up by a member of the team on his way from the University of Oklahoma and should be joining the team before they depart Kansas. Chances are that this week will be pretty boring with little in the way of storms. The best chances for storms over the next few days will be in the far northwest reaches of our chasing region (see below), although even this is hopeful at best. Long term forecasts show promising conditions over the southern plains developing towards the upcoming weekend.

vortex 2 operating domain (within red line)

So far, the trip has been exciting, and interesting. I've seen a lot of the country today, including the gateway arch at St. Louis. Although we have yet to see a tornado, and it seems unlikely that we will have an opportunity until late in the week, the travel and sights alone would make this trip worthwhile.

Unfortunately, in order to keep as many hangers-on and amateurs out of our way as possible for the safety of everyone invloved, I can't be more specific in this blog about our future or current locations than rough areas of states. After we're gone from places I'll be sure to let you know what happened and exactly where with pictures.

I'd like to thank everyone for all their support and interest in my adventures, and before my next post i'll leave you with this photo:

A mobile mesonet (one of the vehicles i'll be driving) collecting data in Oklahoma on Friday with a shelf cloud in the background.

Tuckers, the Confederaaacy, stealing home, and free beer...

Although this is a blog about Vortex2, I'm going to digress for a little.

This week is senor week. Seniors staying in State College have no class, finals or any real responsibility besides graduation. In general, it's a time to hang out with friends one last time and visiting bars one last time. While I'll still be here next year, It's still a sad time because many of my friends will not be. I often get tricked into thinking that I won't be back either. It's hardly a lonely time--we have 9 people staying in our apartment since other seniors got booted from their dorms for the week.

Here's how this week has gone so far:

Saturday:
Went out to the G-man for a few drinks.

Sunday:
Took a day trip to Gettysburg. I've been there before but it's always a good time. We couldn't have asked for a better day, though it was sort of windy. We also discovered a nice microbrewery in town, Appalachian Brewing Company. They had great beer, and I highly recommend the Chicken pot pie.

Monday:
Recovered from Sunday, then we all dressed up in cap and gown and went around campus to take some pictures before it get's too busy over the weekend. That night the bunch of us went out to Pickles to celebrate Joe's birthday.

Tuesday:
We went on a road trip to Philly for to catch a phillies game. On the way we stopped by Shady Maple for an amazing breakfast. In philly we took a tour of Independence Hall, then met up with Justin and his girlfriend, Heather who goes to temple, for cheesesteaks at Pats(we had to compare with genos after a trip there 2 years ago for the PSU/temple football game). We then headed over to the ballpark for Dollar Dog Night. The phillies won 5-3 with Jayson Werth stealing home plate. After the game we stopped for the night in Topton.

Today:
This morning after a nice breakfast at home (Thanks for the lemon meringue pie, mom!) we stopped at Pottsville for a tour of the Yuengling Brewery to start off the bar tour at 10:45 am. This afternoon, we're doing a meteorology senior bar tour around state college to finish off the year inebriated.


Graduation's only two days away. It's hard to get too depressed about that though because the day after means we'll finally be joining the Vortex2 group.

In V2 news, the team is out in Oklahoma today with what should be the first chance for tornadoes! Also, check the Reading Eagle for an upcoming article about myself and Ben participating.


That's all for today--the next post is likely to be from the road!

Welcome

Hello all!

I'll be spending 4 weeks of this summer out in the field chasing tornadoes in the Great Plains. I'm taking part in VORTEX2 (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2) --the largest tornado field experiment ever attempted. Due to popular demand, I've decided to fire up a blog to document my journeys and sights for friends and family. Stay tuned over the next few weeks for as many pictures and videos as I can take (hopefully a few close encounters with some tornadoes). I'll try to keep this updated as often as possible in between visits to gas stations and cheap motels across the plains.


A little background info:

VORTEX2 starts May 10th. I'll be hanging back with Kevin (one of my roommates and another senior in meteo) for graduation, but we'll be driving out to Oklahoma to meet up with the experiment the day after graduation (next saturday).

The project will have over 40 research vehicles with nearly 100 scientists participating from a bunch of different universities and government research agencies. The team from PSU will be driving around in Mobile Mesonets, which are minivans with a roof-rack weather station that can monitor windspeeds, temperature, and relative humidity. We'll be driving through some of the coolest (and most dangerous) parts of the storm in order to get up close measurements near tornadoes.

Other parts of the project include mobile weather balloon stations, 10 mobile radars on flatbed trucks, unmanned aircraft to fly into the storms, tornado "pods" to be dropped right in the path of tornadoes, fixed observing weather stations, and a few people taking pictures and video as well.

Since we're totally nomadic, we can operate anywhere from Texas to South Dakota between roughly the Rockies and the Mississippi River. This also means we'll be hopping from town to town, likely staying in a different motel every night.

For more info, check out the website at www.vortex2.org

We'll also be covered live on the weather channel live every night that we're chasing from 7-10pm. This should give everyone a good idea of what is going on, and you might even get a glimpse of me and the other Penn Staters.

That's all for now--time to enjoy the last week as an undergrad!