Vortex2: world's largest tornado research project ever, is underway
Tornado season is in full swing, and researchers are now poised in America's Great Plains with the largest armada of storm chasing vehicles and equipment ever assembled, in order to learn more about these enigmatic and violent storms. The massive Vortex2 field study began Sunday, and for the next seven weeks over 100 scientists in up to 40 science and support vehicles will be roaming through Tornado Alley, seeking to catch tornadoes on the rampage. The three basic questions the $10 million study will attempt to answer are:
- How, when, and why do tornadoes form? Why some are violent and long lasting while others are weak and short lived?
- What is the structure of tornadoes? How strong are the winds near the ground? How exactly do they do damage?
- How can we learn to forecast tornadoes better? Current warnings have an only 13 minute average lead time and a 70% false alarm rate. Can we make warnings more accurate? Can we warn 30, 45, 60 minutes ahead?'
Figure 1. Tornado over Matador, Texas on April 29, 2009. Photo taken by Texas Tech meteorology graduate student Danielle Turner.
Major tornado outbreak possible Wednesday
The Vortex2 project will have its first good chance to help answer these questions on Wednesday, when a strong cold front is expected to pass through an unstable air mass over Missouri and Illinois, triggering severe thunderstorms with tornadoes. The Storm Prediction Center has given these states a "Moderate" chance of severe weather, the second highest alert level. Today, the Vortex2 armada is stationed in western Oklahoma. The cold front that is expected to trigger Wednesday's severe weather outbreak will be moving through Oklahoma today, bringing a slight chance of severe weather to that state. You can follow the progress of the Vortex2 field project this Spring through our new featured Vortex2 blog. This blog is being written by a team of six University of Michigan students that will help deploy the Texas Tech "Sticknet" sensors during a tornado.
Figure 2. Severe weather outlook from NOAA's Storm Prediction Center for Wednesday, May 13.
An average tornado season so far over the U.S.
Through April, U.S. tornado activity was very close to the mean observed during the past five years, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. However, there were just 15 tornado deaths through April, compared to 70 deaths through April of 2008, and the 3-year average of 60 deaths. According to the unofficial seasonal stats at Wikipedia, we've had 57 strong EF2 and EF3 tornadoes so far this year, and two violent EF4 tornadoes. These are fairly typical numbers of strong and violent tornadoes for this point in the season. The season's first EF4 hit Lone Grove, Oklahoma on February 10, killing eight, injuring 46, and destroying 114 homes, and was the strongest February tornado to hit Oklahoma since 1950. The season's second EF4 hit Murfreesboro, Tennessee on April 10, killing two.
Wunderground launches high-definition radar product
In case you missed my post on this in December, wunderground is now providing imagery from a network of 45 Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) units located at airports across the U.S. The radars were developed and deployed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) beginning in 1994, as a response to several disastrous jetliner crashes in the 1970s and 1980s caused by strong thunderstorm winds. The crashes occurred because of wind shear--a sudden change in wind speed and direction. Wind shear is common in thunderstorms, due to a downward rush of air called a microburst or downburst. The TDWRs can detect such dangerous wind shear conditions, and have been instrumental in enhancing aviation safety in the U.S. over the past 15 years. The TDWRs also measure the same quantities as our familiar network of 148 NEXRAD WSR-88D Doppler radars--precipitation intensity, winds, rainfall rate, echo tops, etc. However, the newer Terminal Doppler Weather Radars are higher resolution, and can "see" details in much finer detail close to the radar. This high-resolution data has generally not been available to the public until now. Thanks to a collaboration between the National Weather Service (NWS) and the FAA, the data for all 44 of 45 TDWRs is now available in real time. We're calling them "High-Def" stations on our NEXRAD radar page, and they are denoted by a yellow "+" symbol. Only one TDWR radar (Las Vegas) remains to be added; this will happen in June. For more info on how to interpret the new TDWR images, see our radar FAQ page.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Find some Hard Hats for the Deploying crews.
There WILL be Hail..,
What really scares me are tornadoes within hurricanes!
Can be in the hundreds from a single landfall. Most of which are quite short lived...sometimes on the order of a few minutes and we have a radar scan rate of 5 minutes. Tracking those are impossible.
Thanks, Dr. M.
I keep watching, and putting up those Daily Area of Interest posts... RTLSNK lives in Macon GA... and it looks like this time of year he is always getting those massive systems sweeping thru there also... I don't know if they spawn many Tornadoes... but they seem to generate everything else.
Not my idea of the sunny south.
actually alot of the doppler sites are live and not updated like the nexrad every 5 minutes....
They will be sticking to Lake O and points eastward today.
The NWS has issued a Hazardous Weather Statement for West Central Florida. They put the rain chances at 30%. They also indicate that spotters should self activate, so some severe weather is possible. My main concern is that lightning will spark fires and we won't get enough rain to put them out.
Several fires started in western Martin Co. yesterday due to lightning.
They actually have tornado chasing vacations! I've considered taking one of those.
Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR)
The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (TDWR) system detects and reports hazardous weather in and around airport terminal approach and departure zones. The TDWR identifies and warns air traffic controllers (ATCs) of low altitude wind shear hazards caused by microbursts and their associated gust fronts, in addition to reporting on precipitation intensities and providing advanced warning of wind shifts. The ATCs use the TDWR reports to warn pilots who are potentially affected by the hazardous weather patterns.
TSC performs analysis to examine the feasibility of providing TDWR coverage to satellite airports within the primary airport TDWR operational range:
* Satellite airport sites are identified for each TDWR location
* Satellite airport locations are examined for position within TDWR Hazardous Mode azimuth scan sector and within radar’s unambiguous range
* TDWR line-of-sight between radar and satellite airport location is analyzed
* TDWR Hazardous Mode elevation coverage is analyzed to determine level of microburst detection at satellite airport
* Microburst reflectivity and outflow estimates generated by TSC Wind Shear Measurement Prediction Model used in microburst detection and coverage analysis
* Velocity Estimation Accuracy modeled as a function of coverage height
FYI, also on some very new radar technology that you will see popping up across the country.
Klystron
We have Klystron in Tampa Bay already. It's great.
I'm a spotter in swfl,I'll keep an eye out but w/a NW wind storms should be well inland to the south and east of my area(siesta key)....
Now Airliners have wind shear detection on-Board to Supplement the Local Airport Radars,and made the FAA place wind shear detectors throughout the Nation.
This computer recreation of the crash of Delta flight 191 is taken from the aircraft's cockpit and flight data recorders showing the effects of microburst and wind sheer on the aircraft as it approaches for landing.
After a lengthy investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board deemed the cause of the crash to be attributable to pilot error, combined with extreme weather phenomena associated with microburst-induced wind shear.[3][2]
The NTSB attributed the accident to lack of the ability to detect microbursts aboard aircraft; the radar equipment aboard aircraft at the time was unable to detect wind changes, only thunderstorms. After the investigation, NASA researchers at Langley Research Center modified a Boeing 737 as a testbed for an on-board Doppler weather radar. The resultant airborne wind shear detection and alert system was installed on many commercial airliners in the United States after the FAA mandated that all commercial aircraft must have on-board windshear detection systems.
The storms should be inland probably with the sea breeze I would think. You are correct, Siesta Key will probably remain dry! At least you have a beautiful view!
Will be interesting to see what comes out of the Vortex2 research. Barometer Bob is traveling with them as well. Hopefully he will be able to do his show on Thursday while he is still with the team.
Good to see Bob out in the field.
I'll post his Show links come Thursday.
Should be a good one.
Barometer Bob Link with Vortex info near the bottom
Barometer Bob Rides with Vortex2
Verification of the Origin of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment
I will be in the Central Plains May 9 - 16 2009 with Vortex2.
Follow me while I ride with the research teams and learn about the science of the development of severe weather and tornados. There will be interviews with the researchers, video and pictures posted on the sites. Stay tuned for more information.
You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.
Vortex2 is Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
G'mornin, SJ. You missed the reunion last night. I told them it wasn't one without ya there. Lots of folks from the past few seasons that haven't been here regularly showed up at once. Weird that.
I built a set of my personal favorite links in my blog. I am not trying to compete with you and I do appreciate your offer of building a stormjunkie.com page, I just wanted to get started with it the other day and found myself not having the links I wanted on multiple PCs. I guess I could copy them all somewhere else.
I'm use to that...I talk and no one listens...lol.
it tends to stay drier out here on the keys until w/get a strong/moist SE or SSE flow.....
Did anyone else hear something? Kinda sounded like IKE. I haven't seen that guy in months.
LOL.
Interesting conversation between Orcasystems and TampaSpin...
os - I know Bob was hoping to run a webcam, but not sure if the team is allowing it.
Thanks Pat and good to see you.
I listen Panhandle brotha!
So much drama for a weather blog!
Thx doc...
Been there, done that back in the 80's that could explain some of my angst when it comes to huricanes, was a mere wee lad back in those days. Later in life I had the unfortunate luck of hitting a small waterspout on the ICW while on a Florida flats style rig.....
I think it would be fantastic if we could give sommeone in the path of a twister/waterspout an hours notice it would be beneficial for mariners and landlubbers alike. Maybe it is a pipe dream, but I hope not.
I will take a tornado over a hurricane anyday personally, a lot less time to worry about the carnage on the front end (especially if we could give an accurate 45-60 minute warning), the end effect could easily be as equally devastating to an individual in either event. As long as you and your family make it, the rest truly is just "stuff"
By the way Dr. M, I really do like the HD radar feature, and it will be interesting to see how the Vortex2 project turns out. I imagine they could collect enough data to take several years to decipher with that may people on the ground.
Readings and forecast maps , thanks
Thanks, one day I will consolidate all of the links spread over several PC's and not be a problem to you all :)
The SPC has a couple of good places for both of those.
This is the SREF (short range ensemble forecast) page: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/sref/frames.php?run=latest
For CAPE click instability on the left and then choose which flavor you want. (Get used to UTC time, too!)
For actual soundings: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/exper/soundings/
For forecast soundings from NAM, I like this one: http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/soundings.nam/snding.html
CaneWarning, How are you? I hear you on the drought and fire conditions. While on vacation last week we were in an area that was more than 80% below their average rainfall for the year. With the exception of pine trees, everything was brown. A fire started a couple of towns away and the whole town was evacuated. I stayed up worried I'd have to pack in a hurry, throw my kids in the car and get out of town fast.
Hey - glad you are back safely from your trip! We need the rain in this area. Hopefully we will get some nice storms this afternoon with cloud to cloud lightning.
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