As some of you may, or may not know, the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, OK is responsible for issuing all of the Tornado and Severe thunderstorm watches across the country. Anytime you find yourself under one of these watches, its because one of the guys or gals out at SPC felt the conditions were favorable for severe weather, and that the watch was warranted. These people are the real deal severe weather experts, I don't care what the Weather Channel commercials say.
So imagine my surprise, and I'll admit, excitement, to hear as we were getting ready to launch a pre-storm sounding earlier this afternoon that the good folks at SPC were very interested in what our sounding might show, as they were considering issuing a Tornado watch for our area. Sure enough, shortly after our sounding was finished and we uploaded it to the VORTEX2 field catalog, which SPC has access to, a Tornado Watch was issued for our area, including parts of NE, IA, MO, and KS. The text for the watch is included below (emphasis added by me):
"DISCUSSION...APPARENTLY SURFACE-BASED CONVECTION IS BEGINNING TO
DEVELOP ALONG THE SE NEB/NE KS BORDER IMMEDIATELY IN ADVANCE OF A
SURFACE WAVE ON THE FRONT...AND IN AN AREA OF STRONG INSTABILITY.
DESPITE THE WARMING NOTED IN THE 850-700 MB LAYER IN THE 19Z TOP AND
20Z VORTEX2 SPECIAL SOUNDING IN SE NEB...COOLING IS LIKELY OCCURRING
FROM THE W WITH THE CLOUD BAND AND AN ASSOCIATED SHORTWAVE TROUGH
EJECTING NEWD OVER CENTRAL KS. GIVEN THIS EARLY
DEVELOPMENT...THUNDERSTORM COVERAGE WILL LIKELY INCREASE THROUGH THE
AFTERNOON/EVENING. THE STORM ENVIRONMENT IS FAVORABLE FOR
SUPERCELLS WITH VERY LARGE HAIL GIVEN STEEP MID LEVEL LAPSE
RATES...MLCAPE OF 2500-3500 J/KG...AND STRONG DEEP LAYER VERTICAL
SHEAR. ADDITIONALLY...BOUNDARY LAYER DEWPOINTS IN THE UPPER 60S AND
BACKING/STRENGTHENING LOW-LEVEL FLOW WILL CONTRIBUTE TO AN
INCREASINGLY FAVORABLE ENVIRONMENT FOR A FEW TORNADOES THROUGH LATE
EVENING."
I don't know how big of a role our sounding ultimately played in the decision process, but it still feels pretty good to have been able to help out with some extra data in their region of interest. Ultimately the V2 armada intercepted a supercell in western MO today and while it did not produce any significant tornadoes, we still managed to get some good data. This was the fourth day in a row we've intercepted a supercell, a definite improvement over how the project had been going for the first few weeks!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Tornado!
So it is currently 3am, and I just got to the hotel a half hour ago, in part because we ended our day 200 miles from our hotel, and in part because a rouge supercell decided to merrily cruise along I-80 right along our return path, with radar indications suggesting "vehicle damaging hail" as the field commander put it. It wasn't all bad though, waiting for the storm to pass gave us an excuse to stop for steak in Ogallala, NE.
The steak of course is to celebrate finally seeing a tornado during VORTEX2! We intercepted a supercell near LaGrange, WY today that produced a rather impressive, long lived torando. Unfortunately, while Heather and I could see the tornado, it was while we were largely driving away from it to position for a balloon launch, so my pictures were taken leaning out the window looking behind us. In the interest of full disclosure, there was a period where we were driving towards the tornado, but we'll save that story for another time. All told we had a solid deployment for a few hours on this supercell, and then once operations ended were able to chase a second supercell (which Heather and I were in great position on from the get go from our last balloon launch) until dark. It didn't produce a tornado, but had a great wall cloud and some fantastic rotation.
Took plenty of pictures, as you may imagine, but can only muster editing one to post tonight because as I said it's 3am, and morning briefing time will be here before I know it! There will be more pictures to come soon, once I actually get a chance to sit down and go through them. Anyway, here's a shot of our tornado, enjoy!
The steak of course is to celebrate finally seeing a tornado during VORTEX2! We intercepted a supercell near LaGrange, WY today that produced a rather impressive, long lived torando. Unfortunately, while Heather and I could see the tornado, it was while we were largely driving away from it to position for a balloon launch, so my pictures were taken leaning out the window looking behind us. In the interest of full disclosure, there was a period where we were driving towards the tornado, but we'll save that story for another time. All told we had a solid deployment for a few hours on this supercell, and then once operations ended were able to chase a second supercell (which Heather and I were in great position on from the get go from our last balloon launch) until dark. It didn't produce a tornado, but had a great wall cloud and some fantastic rotation.
Took plenty of pictures, as you may imagine, but can only muster editing one to post tonight because as I said it's 3am, and morning briefing time will be here before I know it! There will be more pictures to come soon, once I actually get a chance to sit down and go through them. Anyway, here's a shot of our tornado, enjoy!
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Supercells!!!
Today the V2 armada finally caught not just one, but two supercells in southeast WY/northeast CO. Still no tornadoes, but at least we finally had some good rotation in the storms we were chasing (hey, it only took 4 of the 5 weeks of the project!). It was a long, tiring day (lots of driving!) so I'm not up for a full recap right now, but just wanted to share the happy news. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures that look particularly supercell-ish. We were either driving our busy with balloon preparation whenever something interesting was going on. But we did see a nice rainbow, which always makes for a pretty picture:
Now it's time for sleep in the Travel Lodge next to the Corrections Facility in Sterling, CO.....if nothing else our accomadations have been memorable this trip ; ).
Now it's time for sleep in the Travel Lodge next to the Corrections Facility in Sterling, CO.....if nothing else our accomadations have been memorable this trip ; ).
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The TIVs
If you're ever looking for a good way to get everyone from a local town to come out to your hotel parking lot, park one of these out front.
These are the Tornado Intercept Vehicles, TIV1 and TIV2, made famous on the Discovery Channel show "Stormchasers" and yes, they're part of our VORTEX armada. The guy that drives them is pretty cool, he let Kate drive TIV1 around the parking lot the morning we were in Wichita a few weeks back.
TIV1:
TIV2:
These are the Tornado Intercept Vehicles, TIV1 and TIV2, made famous on the Discovery Channel show "Stormchasers" and yes, they're part of our VORTEX armada. The guy that drives them is pretty cool, he let Kate drive TIV1 around the parking lot the morning we were in Wichita a few weeks back.
Sights from the road
As you may have gleaned from my posts, we've been doing a LOT of driving across the plains the last couple weeks. And while in many cases there isn't a whole lot to see out here, we've managed to find a couple local gems and stop to take a picture:
Carhenge in Alliance, NE.
Alliance has the dubious honor of being remembered as the place that we got to stay at the 1st Inn. If you've ever wondered what it's like to sleep in an ashtray, you should stop by the 1st Inn in Alliance, NE. However, Alliance is also home to a little place called Carhenge. As the name suggests, Carhenge is an homage to Stonehenge, only constructed entirely of old cars. A must see for any storm chase passing through town.
There are other pieces of "art" scattered around the site as well, the common theme being that everything is made out of car parts. Two of my favorites were this dinosaur:
And the "wagon" (get it?).
And for a guy who walks around with the "Wizard of Oz" theme as his cell phone ringer, we just had to stop by Dorothy's house. I'd make a "we're not in Kansas anymore" joke, but we actually were still in Kansas...Liberal to be exact.
Other sites that we heard about, but didn't bother to visit included the World's Largest Prairie Dog (this would have earned a stop, had we not learned it was made out of concrete!) and the Barbed Wire museum near Hays, KS....maybe next time.
Carhenge in Alliance, NE.
Alliance has the dubious honor of being remembered as the place that we got to stay at the 1st Inn. If you've ever wondered what it's like to sleep in an ashtray, you should stop by the 1st Inn in Alliance, NE. However, Alliance is also home to a little place called Carhenge. As the name suggests, Carhenge is an homage to Stonehenge, only constructed entirely of old cars. A must see for any storm chase passing through town.
There are other pieces of "art" scattered around the site as well, the common theme being that everything is made out of car parts. Two of my favorites were this dinosaur:
And the "wagon" (get it?).
And for a guy who walks around with the "Wizard of Oz" theme as his cell phone ringer, we just had to stop by Dorothy's house. I'd make a "we're not in Kansas anymore" joke, but we actually were still in Kansas...Liberal to be exact.
Other sites that we heard about, but didn't bother to visit included the World's Largest Prairie Dog (this would have earned a stop, had we not learned it was made out of concrete!) and the Barbed Wire museum near Hays, KS....maybe next time.
Nebraska to Texas and Back again
When I wrote my last post we were in Nebraska, as I write this post, we're in Nebraska again (albeit a different city). However, in the interceding days, we've been to Texas and back. I think the most apt description of this project that I've heard yet came from one of our balloon compatriots from NCAR, who described it as "the magical mystery tour of the Great Plains". Our operations domain extends from South Dakota to Texas, and I figured we'd traverse the whole thing over the course of the 5 weeks that we're out here....I just didn't plan to do it twice in a matter of days : p.
On the brighter side, all of the miles we've been traveling rewarded us with a supercell back on Tuesday (FYI I had to go back to my notebook and first look up which date we intercepted the storm, and then confirm the day of the week....the spiral into temporal confusion continues!). While it didn't produce a tornado it was actually an interesting storm. It was intially a severe multicell storm west of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, and there was some heated debate as to whether we should attempt an intercept, as our operations generally call for avoidance of large urban areas at all costs for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that we would have been trying to intercept during the evening rush hour. As this debate raged on, the storm began to show signs of becoming "outflow dominant" meaning the cold air that results from the precipitation falling and evaporating was rushing out ahead of the storm, which is generally bad news for supercell organization and tornadogenesis. Things were looking bleak when the storm began to split in two, with one of the cells taking a hard turn to the left and beginning to head north (referred to as a "left-mover"). This storm developed a region of anti-cyclonic (clockwise) rotation, indicative of a left-moving supercell and appeared to be getting more organized on radar.
While all of this happening, the 4 sounding teams were stretched out in roughly a north-south line to facilitate faster reaction to just this kind of change in storm evolution (the coordinators had yet to pick a clear target, so the sounding leaders had decided to space us out some so we could hopefully respond effectively when they did pick a target storm). As a result, my truck and one of the NSSL trucks were in decent position to move west and deploy on this new left-moving storm. We did so, with my truck getting in position just ahead of the storm to take near-storm soundings on the forward flank (we ended up making 2 soundings) while the NSSL truck moved further north to sample the inflow environment. Eventually the other NCAR truck was able to get in position as well and get an additional sounding off. Making matters even more interesting, between the two soundings that my truck launched the storm transitioned from appearing to be more of a left-mover with anti-cyclonic rotation, to taking a turn to the right and developing a region of cyclonic circulation more like a traditional supercell. This could prove to be a very interesting case to study once we get back. Unfortunately, given our position we couldn't get any cool "supercell-esque" pictures, but I did mange to grab a shot of a rainbow before we redeployed from our first sounding location.
After this, we spent the rest of the week either down (Wednesday, in Norman, OK) or traveling (Thursday, to Topeka, KS). We chased some rather weak storms yesterday, here in Nebraska. While they still weren't really the kind of storms we wanted we did manage to do a good job of getting all of the sounding units into position and launching in near-storm mode within 15 minutes of each other, which bodes well for once we actually get a tornadic supercell (note the optimism...it's still "when", never "if" we see a tornadic supercell). We're down again today, enjoying a day in Grand Island, NE and we have several possible plays over the next few days, however they're somewhat far apart so it sounds like there's going to be some discussion this evening over what we're actually going to try for. When you have possibilities ranging from MN to TX over the course of 2 days, you can't really do them all!
The conditions still aren't great for supercells/tornadoes, but at least we've been chasing in areas where conditions warrant a "slight risk" of severe weather from the Storm Prediction Center, which is a vast improvement over what we'd been chasing over the last couple weeks. This past Wednesday there wasn't even a chance of thunder within the entire VORTEX2 domain, let alone anything severe!
On the brighter side, all of the miles we've been traveling rewarded us with a supercell back on Tuesday (FYI I had to go back to my notebook and first look up which date we intercepted the storm, and then confirm the day of the week....the spiral into temporal confusion continues!). While it didn't produce a tornado it was actually an interesting storm. It was intially a severe multicell storm west of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, and there was some heated debate as to whether we should attempt an intercept, as our operations generally call for avoidance of large urban areas at all costs for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that we would have been trying to intercept during the evening rush hour. As this debate raged on, the storm began to show signs of becoming "outflow dominant" meaning the cold air that results from the precipitation falling and evaporating was rushing out ahead of the storm, which is generally bad news for supercell organization and tornadogenesis. Things were looking bleak when the storm began to split in two, with one of the cells taking a hard turn to the left and beginning to head north (referred to as a "left-mover"). This storm developed a region of anti-cyclonic (clockwise) rotation, indicative of a left-moving supercell and appeared to be getting more organized on radar.
While all of this happening, the 4 sounding teams were stretched out in roughly a north-south line to facilitate faster reaction to just this kind of change in storm evolution (the coordinators had yet to pick a clear target, so the sounding leaders had decided to space us out some so we could hopefully respond effectively when they did pick a target storm). As a result, my truck and one of the NSSL trucks were in decent position to move west and deploy on this new left-moving storm. We did so, with my truck getting in position just ahead of the storm to take near-storm soundings on the forward flank (we ended up making 2 soundings) while the NSSL truck moved further north to sample the inflow environment. Eventually the other NCAR truck was able to get in position as well and get an additional sounding off. Making matters even more interesting, between the two soundings that my truck launched the storm transitioned from appearing to be more of a left-mover with anti-cyclonic rotation, to taking a turn to the right and developing a region of cyclonic circulation more like a traditional supercell. This could prove to be a very interesting case to study once we get back. Unfortunately, given our position we couldn't get any cool "supercell-esque" pictures, but I did mange to grab a shot of a rainbow before we redeployed from our first sounding location.
After this, we spent the rest of the week either down (Wednesday, in Norman, OK) or traveling (Thursday, to Topeka, KS). We chased some rather weak storms yesterday, here in Nebraska. While they still weren't really the kind of storms we wanted we did manage to do a good job of getting all of the sounding units into position and launching in near-storm mode within 15 minutes of each other, which bodes well for once we actually get a tornadic supercell (note the optimism...it's still "when", never "if" we see a tornadic supercell). We're down again today, enjoying a day in Grand Island, NE and we have several possible plays over the next few days, however they're somewhat far apart so it sounds like there's going to be some discussion this evening over what we're actually going to try for. When you have possibilities ranging from MN to TX over the course of 2 days, you can't really do them all!
The conditions still aren't great for supercells/tornadoes, but at least we've been chasing in areas where conditions warrant a "slight risk" of severe weather from the Storm Prediction Center, which is a vast improvement over what we'd been chasing over the last couple weeks. This past Wednesday there wasn't even a chance of thunder within the entire VORTEX2 domain, let alone anything severe!
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Quick update
Just wanted to give a quick update before I crash tonight. Yesterday we operated in western South Dakota/eastern Wyoming (well, my team was in eastern Wyoming, pretty much everyone else was in SD). It was a frustrating day, as the convection never really moved off of the Black Hills so we weren't really able to deploy and do much more than launch environmental soundings all day. I think it was extra frustrating as I had been secretly hoping for a down day to go see Mount Rushmore, or do some hiking in the Black Hills. This may give you an idea of how the project has been going the last week or so...my first thought as we rolled into Hot Springs, SD two days ago was "Ooo mountains, lets go hiking!" rather than anything related to storm intercepts : p. This is the kind of thing a persistent ridge over the central US will do to a person.
Today though, we actually got a decent storm intercept and I was quite happy with it. Still wasn't a supercell and still no tornadoes, but at least there was marginally enough shear present to organize the storm into something we could actually run operations on. My compatriot in NCAR1 today was Matt, one of the other NCSUers, as Lou and Chris, my NCAR buddies, had to run to Scottsbluff, NE to get us some more helium. We managed to get ourselves into position on the storm quite readily and then maintained our position without getting overrun by the precipitation. Not only that, but we were averaging about 10 mins from stopping the truck to getting a balloon in the air, which is pretty good seeing as we were told to expect 15-20 mins. prep time coming into the project.
So all told I'm feeling better after our operations today. Things still look pretty marginal for the coming days, but I've heard a rumor that it looks a little better by early/mid week (I haven't been looking at the medium-range models forecasts myself lately as I've been finding it too depressing : p). I'm trying to keep up a Great Pumpkin-esque philosophy with regards to our storms, it's not if we will get a tornadic supercell, but rather when we will get it ; )
That's all for now, we did stop at Carhenge the other day on our way north from Nebraska....I have pictures that I plan to post at some point, but not right now cuz I'm just too darn tired!
Today though, we actually got a decent storm intercept and I was quite happy with it. Still wasn't a supercell and still no tornadoes, but at least there was marginally enough shear present to organize the storm into something we could actually run operations on. My compatriot in NCAR1 today was Matt, one of the other NCSUers, as Lou and Chris, my NCAR buddies, had to run to Scottsbluff, NE to get us some more helium. We managed to get ourselves into position on the storm quite readily and then maintained our position without getting overrun by the precipitation. Not only that, but we were averaging about 10 mins from stopping the truck to getting a balloon in the air, which is pretty good seeing as we were told to expect 15-20 mins. prep time coming into the project.
So all told I'm feeling better after our operations today. Things still look pretty marginal for the coming days, but I've heard a rumor that it looks a little better by early/mid week (I haven't been looking at the medium-range models forecasts myself lately as I've been finding it too depressing : p). I'm trying to keep up a Great Pumpkin-esque philosophy with regards to our storms, it's not if we will get a tornadic supercell, but rather when we will get it ; )
That's all for now, we did stop at Carhenge the other day on our way north from Nebraska....I have pictures that I plan to post at some point, but not right now cuz I'm just too darn tired!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Operations on Tuesday and Wednesday
In spite of a pattern that is the antithesis of what you want for severe weather (someone didn't get the memo and gave us a wicked ridge over the central US instead of a nice trough!) V2 has been running operations the past two days. Storms have been weak and poorly organized at best, leading to challenges in terms of targeting a given storm and some definite frustration among the teams. We've been launching balloons, both in the pre-storm environment, as well as near some of the storms, so if nothing else we're getting some practice launching in a variety of conditions.
Yesterday we ran sounding ops from the parking lot of a Cabela's outdoor store in Sydney, NE (I'm still kicking myself for not volunteering to be the early deployment team for that one!). Which lead to some nice photo-ops with the statue of battling Caribou out front.
Today, we were further north in the Nebraska sand hills operating between Alliance and Hyannis NE. For those of you New Englanders reading this, Hyannis, NE is nothing like Hyannis, MA, and we'll leave it at that. The storms weren't all that exciting and we ended up switching targets a few times trying to find something decent to go after. We're still waiting to get a good supercell deployment....any day now, I'm sure : p.
On a brighter note, though, I had two VUSIT sightings today while on the road (that's the Valparaiso University Storm Intercept Team for those not in the know). Hopefully our path's will cross at some point over the next few weeks when one of us isn't traveling at 70 mph so we can say hi!
Yesterday we ran sounding ops from the parking lot of a Cabela's outdoor store in Sydney, NE (I'm still kicking myself for not volunteering to be the early deployment team for that one!). Which lead to some nice photo-ops with the statue of battling Caribou out front.
Today, we were further north in the Nebraska sand hills operating between Alliance and Hyannis NE. For those of you New Englanders reading this, Hyannis, NE is nothing like Hyannis, MA, and we'll leave it at that. The storms weren't all that exciting and we ended up switching targets a few times trying to find something decent to go after. We're still waiting to get a good supercell deployment....any day now, I'm sure : p.
On a brighter note, though, I had two VUSIT sightings today while on the road (that's the Valparaiso University Storm Intercept Team for those not in the know). Hopefully our path's will cross at some point over the next few weeks when one of us isn't traveling at 70 mph so we can say hi!
My truck is like a my computer.....
Had a new and exciting experience Monday morning. Chris and piled into NCAR1, the Chevy Silverado 2500 that I've been working out of during V2 to start our trek north to Nebraska on what was supposed to be a simple travel day. I turned the key, and after some hesitation the engine turned over, at which point the truck started idling in a manner than can best be described by violet shaking. We coaxed it around the hotel parking lot to the other sounding trucks and determined we better get it to a Chevy dealer ASAP. Our concern deepened as we got on the road and determined our max speed was 20 mph. Luckily the Hays Chevy dealer was only about 2 blocks away, and the guys there managed to get it in and start looking at it pretty quickly.
After running some tests and checking a few things the mechanic did something that I and probably every other PC user out there does quite frequently. He reset the truck's computer (I still have visions of some secret ctl-alt-delete keys somewhere under the hood), and poof problem fixed! So we still don't know what was wrong, just that it was apparently a computer issue. Yay for technology! Anyway, truck is still going strong several hundred miles later, and hopefully it will stay that way!
Greensburg, KS....why we're out here
On the way up to Hays, KS last Saturday our team took a slight detour off of the route north to swing through Greensburg, KS. For those of you that don't know Greensburg was witness to a devastating tornado just over two years ago, on 4 May 2007. It was the first tornado to be rated an EF-5 on the new Enhanced Fujita scale for tornado intensity. By many accounts the small town was "wiped off the map" by the event.
It was both sobering and heartening to see the town 2 years after the tornado. Sobering in that many of the scars were still there. Vacant slabs where homes once stood, trees still standing yet stripped of their bark and no longer bearing leaves. Yet it was also heartening to see the reconstruction underway, new homes going up, a new school, and the sign welcoming you to town that read "Greensburg, KS Rebuilding... Stonger, Better, Greener".
I snapped a few pictures as we came into town on the main road, however quickly stowed the camera as we turned off of onto one of the side streets. It just didn't feel right and I knew if I was living in a place that had been ravaged by a tornado I probably wouldn't particularly care for people driving by snapping pictures as though it was some kind of attraction. And honestly the few pictures I did take don't come close to doing justice to the scene.
It may sound trite, but to me this is why we're out here doing this project. It's not about the thrills or getting cool video, or even necessarily about the scientific curiosity of understanding how these storms work. Rather, its to keep events like Greensburg from being so tragic. While we're not going to be stopping tornadoes from tearing through towns like Greensburg anytime soon, if our research can help better warn or prepare people for their impact then I see it being worth the money and time being spent out here. Eleven people died on that May evening two years ago, and one of the best ways to keep that from happening is to continue to advance our understanding of these storms and use that knowledge for better warnings and longer lead times so people can get to safety.
Anyway, sorry for the downer of a post here....I promise future posts will return to pretty pictures and stories of my adventures with weather balloon launching ; ).
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Down day
Today there were no VORTEX2 operations, as there were no storms to chase, so we had a "down day" here in Hays, KS. We used the time to back up our data and take care of some other odds and ends in the morning, and then spent the afternoon playing frisbee at a local park and generally relaxing after 2 weeks of VORTEXing. I guess that's the benefit of only having operations when there's severe weather....when it's 75 and sunny, you get the day off ; ).
Looks like the most we'll be doing for the next few days is traveling to a new, still undetermined, location to get us in position for later in the week, when things pick back up. But stay tuned, I still have a ton of pictures to go through from the last two weeks, so I may find some stuff to post about even if we're not operating all that much.
Looks like the most we'll be doing for the next few days is traveling to a new, still undetermined, location to get us in position for later in the week, when things pick back up. But stay tuned, I still have a ton of pictures to go through from the last two weeks, so I may find some stuff to post about even if we're not operating all that much.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Squall line!!!
On Friday we had what looks to be our last day of active operations for at least the next several days. We started the day in Wichita, KS with our target being convection developing along a cold front that extended from Kansas City, KS to the northern TX panhandle. The prospects for supercells were weak, but there was some hope that we'd be able to get some early isolated cells to target before everything evolved into a squall line. We deployed to Enid, OK, where Bill and I launched a pre-storm sounding from the parking lot of a local Wal-Mart. The sounding launched okay, but we encountered a computer problem that caused us to lose some data in the lower part of the sounding. Hopefully we'll be able to get this issue rectified before the end of the project, as this is the second time the problem has happened.
Shortly after our pre-storm launch we deployed north toward Cherokee, OK. Convection as developing rapidly along the front, and rapidly forming a squall line. As a result we broke from our usual deployment strategies and instead came up with a "squall line deployment" where we kept all of the trucks at the same location and rotated between the teams to launch balloons. This allowed us to launch balloons as frequently as every 15 minutes, rather than once an hour or so when we are all deployed to different locations. As a result, we sat and waited about 10 miles south of Cherokee, OK for the line to reach us, launching balloons every 30 minutes. This will hopefully give us a high-resolution picture of how the environment varies as a squall line approaches a location, something that will be useful for my upcoming PhD research!
My team launched twice from this location, one sounding in the pre-line environment, and then another just behind the gust front of the storm, minutes before we were overrun by the heavy precipitation within the line. We hunkered down in the trucks while the line passed, and as soon as the heavy precipitation was done we were back to launching balloons, giving us a full picture of the storm from well ahead of the line, to the cold pool and trailing stratiform precipitation region behind the line of heaviest rain. (For you non-meteorologists in the crowd...this is a very good thing!)
One of the benefits of having all four teams together is that between launches we were just waiting around, which provided plenty of time for pictures, so of course I took a bunch, some of which I've included below:
When we arrived skies were sunny, although we could see the clouds from the squall line off to the west.
Before long, though, the high-level cirrus clouds that make up the forward anvil of the squall line had overtaken our position, with some great looking mamatus under the anvil.
Finally, we began to be able to make out the gust front, the leading edge of the cold air rushing out from the squall line, heading our way. Ominous as it looked, we continued operations right up until the precipitation overtook our location.
Another shot of the shelf cloud associated with the gust front as it passed over our location.
And the best way to end any good chase day is with your truck in one piece, and a nice sunset to watch!
Shortly after our pre-storm launch we deployed north toward Cherokee, OK. Convection as developing rapidly along the front, and rapidly forming a squall line. As a result we broke from our usual deployment strategies and instead came up with a "squall line deployment" where we kept all of the trucks at the same location and rotated between the teams to launch balloons. This allowed us to launch balloons as frequently as every 15 minutes, rather than once an hour or so when we are all deployed to different locations. As a result, we sat and waited about 10 miles south of Cherokee, OK for the line to reach us, launching balloons every 30 minutes. This will hopefully give us a high-resolution picture of how the environment varies as a squall line approaches a location, something that will be useful for my upcoming PhD research!
My team launched twice from this location, one sounding in the pre-line environment, and then another just behind the gust front of the storm, minutes before we were overrun by the heavy precipitation within the line. We hunkered down in the trucks while the line passed, and as soon as the heavy precipitation was done we were back to launching balloons, giving us a full picture of the storm from well ahead of the line, to the cold pool and trailing stratiform precipitation region behind the line of heaviest rain. (For you non-meteorologists in the crowd...this is a very good thing!)
One of the benefits of having all four teams together is that between launches we were just waiting around, which provided plenty of time for pictures, so of course I took a bunch, some of which I've included below:
When we arrived skies were sunny, although we could see the clouds from the squall line off to the west.
Before long, though, the high-level cirrus clouds that make up the forward anvil of the squall line had overtaken our position, with some great looking mamatus under the anvil.
Finally, we began to be able to make out the gust front, the leading edge of the cold air rushing out from the squall line, heading our way. Ominous as it looked, we continued operations right up until the precipitation overtook our location.
Another shot of the shelf cloud associated with the gust front as it passed over our location.
And the best way to end any good chase day is with your truck in one piece, and a nice sunset to watch!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Upondes on The Weather Channel
Thanks to Miranda, aka the official upsonde groupie, we have a link to a Weather Channel piece about our soundings . The video includes an interview with Dr. Parker, as well as some shots of our practice launch on media day.
V2 Operations Day 4.... back to OK
After chasing in TX yesterday, today we returned to OK, initially targeting Clinton, where we had spent the night on Monday. Today, though was more fruitful as we actually ended up with a target supercell and were able to deploy accordingly.
Today I was joined by Bill, one of the NCAR scientists, as he and Tim had swapped places with Bill in my truck and Tim driving the support truck. We got into position and launched a sounding from Canton, OK, just after 5 pm as storms were beginning to develop to our north along a cold front. We were then sent east to Okeene, OK to begin sampling the target storm using our "slow moving storm" strategy, which places us near the forward flank of the storm. Making this deployment extra interesting, our mobile internet was not working, meaning that we didn't have radar data or the positions of the other V2 vehicles, to give us situational awareness. Thus we had to make our initial intercept visually, which was a bit daunting since it's been a good 5 years since my last real storm chase.
We reached Okeene as the storm was beginning to organize to the north. As we closed on the storm, I could see the updraft region and knew that we needed to move east to get into position. We then passed several of the deployed doppler radars further suggesting that we needed to move east as our position is supposed to be east of them. As the storm began dropping forward flank precipitation, we decided to move slightly south so that we'd be able to launch our balloon without getting overtaken by it. By 6:20 we were in position to launch, and got our balloon off by 6:30, just as some light precipitation was beginning to fall and lightning was increasing. We continued to reposition to the south, eventually launching another sounding near Union City, OK just as the sun was setting at about 830 pm. We probably could have gotten off another sounding or two over the course of the day had we stayed closer to the storm instead of heading east before we moved south, but for our first real deployment I think it went pretty well. And when we stopped to launch at sunset we deployed our orange hazard flasher on the roof of the truck....which looked pretty sweet:
Tomorrow looks to be a relocation day, as no storms are expected. This will actually be nice as it will give us a chance to debrief the last two days and figure out what if anything we can/should change. Friday will hopefully find us out chasing again though, so be sure to check back for more reports.
Today I was joined by Bill, one of the NCAR scientists, as he and Tim had swapped places with Bill in my truck and Tim driving the support truck. We got into position and launched a sounding from Canton, OK, just after 5 pm as storms were beginning to develop to our north along a cold front. We were then sent east to Okeene, OK to begin sampling the target storm using our "slow moving storm" strategy, which places us near the forward flank of the storm. Making this deployment extra interesting, our mobile internet was not working, meaning that we didn't have radar data or the positions of the other V2 vehicles, to give us situational awareness. Thus we had to make our initial intercept visually, which was a bit daunting since it's been a good 5 years since my last real storm chase.
We reached Okeene as the storm was beginning to organize to the north. As we closed on the storm, I could see the updraft region and knew that we needed to move east to get into position. We then passed several of the deployed doppler radars further suggesting that we needed to move east as our position is supposed to be east of them. As the storm began dropping forward flank precipitation, we decided to move slightly south so that we'd be able to launch our balloon without getting overtaken by it. By 6:20 we were in position to launch, and got our balloon off by 6:30, just as some light precipitation was beginning to fall and lightning was increasing. We continued to reposition to the south, eventually launching another sounding near Union City, OK just as the sun was setting at about 830 pm. We probably could have gotten off another sounding or two over the course of the day had we stayed closer to the storm instead of heading east before we moved south, but for our first real deployment I think it went pretty well. And when we stopped to launch at sunset we deployed our orange hazard flasher on the roof of the truck....which looked pretty sweet:
Tomorrow looks to be a relocation day, as no storms are expected. This will actually be nice as it will give us a chance to debrief the last two days and figure out what if anything we can/should change. Friday will hopefully find us out chasing again though, so be sure to check back for more reports.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Day three....and the dryline giveth
The third day of VORTEX2 operations started about the same as the first two...cold and drizzly. However, today we at least had the prospect of storms, and we left last night's lodging in Clinton, OK headed west for the Texas Panhandle.
The upsonde units were slated to launch two pre-convection soundings, with my team joining the NSSL2 truck (Matt, Kate and Dave) in the thriving metropolis of Tulia, TX (note: Tulia is neither thriving, nor a metropolis). They got to town before us, so they took the lead on the sounding, getting set up at a local park. Tim and I arrived in time to help fill the balloon and take the site pictures and the balloon was released at 2:05 PM CDT.
After waiting for the balloon to complete its ascent through the troposphere, we joined a large part of the armada on the other side of Tulia for a short spell, before Tim and I were redeployed west to Silverton, TX to launch another sounding, just as storms were beginning to develop along the dryline.
Downtown Silverton, TX as a storm rolls in
We reached Silverton in about 45 minutes, and soon had our sounding equipment ready and a balloon in the air. It indicated that the atmosphere was still quite dry in the low levels, which made sense as the storms that were developing were rather weak and none were organizing into the supercells that we were looking for.
Ultimately, we ended up spending the remainder of our day in Silverton with the armada, eventually joining the convoy for the trip east to our lodging location, jumping into line right behind one of the Doppler on Wheels (DOW) trucks.
Rolling down the highway behind the DOW
As luck would have it a storm that had developed to our south eventually became a supercell and passed over our lodging location just as we were arriving, dropping some small hail, and making for some amazing lightning. Unfortunately it was too late for us to deploy for this particular storm, as the sun was beginning to set.
Precipitation core in a supercell south of Childress, TX.
Overall, I'd say this was a pretty good first chase day. Between the whole team, we launched several successful soundings, although we never actually did deploy for a certain storm. There were some communications issues, but we anticipated that going in given the cell service in this part of the country, and hopefully we'll be able to adapt to overcome these on future missions. For now, though, it's time for bed, as tomorrow looks to be another active day!
NCAR1 (my truck!) with a rainbow
The upsonde units were slated to launch two pre-convection soundings, with my team joining the NSSL2 truck (Matt, Kate and Dave) in the thriving metropolis of Tulia, TX (note: Tulia is neither thriving, nor a metropolis). They got to town before us, so they took the lead on the sounding, getting set up at a local park. Tim and I arrived in time to help fill the balloon and take the site pictures and the balloon was released at 2:05 PM CDT.
After waiting for the balloon to complete its ascent through the troposphere, we joined a large part of the armada on the other side of Tulia for a short spell, before Tim and I were redeployed west to Silverton, TX to launch another sounding, just as storms were beginning to develop along the dryline.
Downtown Silverton, TX as a storm rolls in
We reached Silverton in about 45 minutes, and soon had our sounding equipment ready and a balloon in the air. It indicated that the atmosphere was still quite dry in the low levels, which made sense as the storms that were developing were rather weak and none were organizing into the supercells that we were looking for.
Ultimately, we ended up spending the remainder of our day in Silverton with the armada, eventually joining the convoy for the trip east to our lodging location, jumping into line right behind one of the Doppler on Wheels (DOW) trucks.
Rolling down the highway behind the DOW
As luck would have it a storm that had developed to our south eventually became a supercell and passed over our lodging location just as we were arriving, dropping some small hail, and making for some amazing lightning. Unfortunately it was too late for us to deploy for this particular storm, as the sun was beginning to set.
Precipitation core in a supercell south of Childress, TX.
Overall, I'd say this was a pretty good first chase day. Between the whole team, we launched several successful soundings, although we never actually did deploy for a certain storm. There were some communications issues, but we anticipated that going in given the cell service in this part of the country, and hopefully we'll be able to adapt to overcome these on future missions. For now, though, it's time for bed, as tomorrow looks to be another active day!
NCAR1 (my truck!) with a rainbow
Sunday, May 10, 2009
V2 Operations, Day 1
Today was the first official day of operations for VORTEX2. We started the day with a weather briefing at 10am, which confirmed what most of us had already determined: no storms today, so we're staying in Norman. This actually worked out well, as it gave us the opportunity to work out the few remaining kinks in our communications/navigation software, so that by the end of the day everything looks to be ready to roll (knock on wood). We're fully operational now, meaning that we've joined the rest of the armada at a common hotel, and that we're expected to be ready to go by the 10am briefing in the morning. I have to say, we make quite a site with all of our instrumented vehicles and mobile radars parked in front of the hotel!
Hopefully tomorrow we'll finally leave Norman for somewhere with some storms!!
Hopefully tomorrow we'll finally leave Norman for somewhere with some storms!!
Balloon Training (Thursday)
So I realize it's Sunday, and the following pictures are from Thursday...but this is the first time I've had some downtime to catch up with things! Anyway, on Thursday we did some balloon training, learning how to use all of the sounding equipment, and how to fill and launch a balloon. We had some problems, as the first two sondes ended up being bad, with temperature readings 5C off from our surface station for quality control, but we were still able to learn how to do everything, so now we're ready for action! Here are some pictures:
The team working on setting up the sonde prior to launch. We use a special machine in the truck to acquire and condition the sonde prior to launch. Once this is done, we keep the sonde in an aspirator that blows air over it and keeps the temperature sensor shaded so we don't get an inaccurate reading from having the sonde sitting in the sun or on the ground. The aspirator is the thing that looks like a TV tray near the middle of the picture.
A closeup of one of our sondes, sitting on the older style aspirator that will be used by the NSSL trucks. The NCAR trucks have a newer aspirator design that is more compact.
Ready to launch. Tim explains balloon launch procedures to Dr. Parker, while Matt holds the balloon.
The team working on setting up the sonde prior to launch. We use a special machine in the truck to acquire and condition the sonde prior to launch. Once this is done, we keep the sonde in an aspirator that blows air over it and keeps the temperature sensor shaded so we don't get an inaccurate reading from having the sonde sitting in the sun or on the ground. The aspirator is the thing that looks like a TV tray near the middle of the picture.
A closeup of one of our sondes, sitting on the older style aspirator that will be used by the NSSL trucks. The NCAR trucks have a newer aspirator design that is more compact.
Ready to launch. Tim explains balloon launch procedures to Dr. Parker, while Matt holds the balloon.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Media Day
Thursday was media day, bringing an army of reporters, photographers and videographers to the National Weather Center to see just what we were up to. It also brought out local celebrities as Miss Oklahoma, who happens to be a sophomore meteorology major at OU. Here she is inspecting one of the chase vehicles.
Personally I think NC State should have chipped in to outfit us with sparkly tiaras and sashes instead of our "Red Means Go" t-shirts....would have been a lot more eye-catching.
Media day also included an hour with all of the chase vehicles and teams assembled in the parking lot for pictures/interviews. We showed off our newly learned mad-ballooning skills with a live balloon launch. Here are a few shots from the event:
Group shot of the sounding team. From left to right: Casey, Dave, Matt, Kate, Matt (Dr. Parker), Me, and George. Missing from the picture are the NCAR folks: Tim, Jenn, and Bill.
The result when you tell George to get into the group picture with the rest of us.
Line-up of M-GAUSS trucks..Dodge Chevy and Ford are all represented.
Field Coordinator vehicle
Mobile Mesonets
Overhead view through a window on the 5th floor of the National Weather Center. This gives you an idea of just how many vehicles are going to be taking part in the project.
Personally I think NC State should have chipped in to outfit us with sparkly tiaras and sashes instead of our "Red Means Go" t-shirts....would have been a lot more eye-catching.Media day also included an hour with all of the chase vehicles and teams assembled in the parking lot for pictures/interviews. We showed off our newly learned mad-ballooning skills with a live balloon launch. Here are a few shots from the event:
Group shot of the sounding team. From left to right: Casey, Dave, Matt, Kate, Matt (Dr. Parker), Me, and George. Missing from the picture are the NCAR folks: Tim, Jenn, and Bill.
The result when you tell George to get into the group picture with the rest of us.
Line-up of M-GAUSS trucks..Dodge Chevy and Ford are all represented.
Field Coordinator vehicle
Mobile Mesonets
Overhead view through a window on the 5th floor of the National Weather Center. This gives you an idea of just how many vehicles are going to be taking part in the project.
Casey and I make the Weather Channel....sort of
Thanks to Miranda for this link . The Weather Channel's Mike Bettes has been around the National Weather Center the last few days doing interviews and various reports regarding V2. In one of his more recent installments he and his videographer were up on the rooftop observation deck, and happened to note a few students preparing a weather balloon launch....I'm the one in the orange shirt...if you squint you may recognize the Red Sox hat ; ).
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Irony defined
Irony: Driving 1200 miles over 2 days to find tornadoes only to have a tornado-warned, very impressive looking supercell go over campus back in NC!
No confirmation of any tornadoes in the greater Raleigh area, although the storm looked very well-organized on radar. Unfortunately it does sound like a tornado touched down east of Raleigh, in Wilson county causing damage to some homes in the area.
No confirmation of any tornadoes in the greater Raleigh area, although the storm looked very well-organized on radar. Unfortunately it does sound like a tornado touched down east of Raleigh, in Wilson county causing damage to some homes in the area.
Made it to Norman.....please step out of the vehicle with your hands where I can see them
So the first major hurdle in our VORTEX2 experience has been crossed.....we've made it to Norman, OK! We'll be here for the next several days doing training and preparations, learning how to launch the balloons, getting aquainted with the navigation/radar software, etc.
Overall the trip out was long, but uneventful....that is until we reached OK this afternoon. About an hour across the border we stopped for gas, and upon re-entering the interstate, were passed by several police vehicles running full lights and sirens. I was figuring there was an accident ahead, and worried that we might be delayed. Finally, we rounded a bend and saw that there were several police cars off the right shoulder with two other cars up ahead. In about as long as it took me to think "Oh good, whatever it is doesn't look serious and it's all off to the side," I realized that the police officers were all positioned behind their vehicles with guns drawn, including shotguns and assault rifles... and we were closing in on this scene at 70 mph.
The car in front of us stopped and pulled far to the left, and we did the same, trying to put some distance between us and what appeared to be an impending showdown. One of the officers stopped the traffic coming up behind us, and they began issuing instructions to the occupants of one of the cars over a loudspeaker, ordering first the driver, and then, one by one, the four other occupants out of the car and onto the ground. It was literally just like an episode of "Cops", only in live action from a couple hundred feet away. All the occupants were eventually taken into custody, although the last one out of the car kept dropping his hands down instead of keeping them raised over his head, making for a couple tense moments. Once they were all cuffed and under control we were allowed on our merry way. Welcome to Oklahoma!
I've included some pictures below....quality isn't the greatest but they were shot through a window, with me trying not to draw attention the the fact that I was taking pictures!
The scene as we pulled up:
Securing the suspects:
Securing the vehicle. The guy in the green uniform on the right was packing some serious heat...looked like an M-4 assault rifle.
Overall the trip out was long, but uneventful....that is until we reached OK this afternoon. About an hour across the border we stopped for gas, and upon re-entering the interstate, were passed by several police vehicles running full lights and sirens. I was figuring there was an accident ahead, and worried that we might be delayed. Finally, we rounded a bend and saw that there were several police cars off the right shoulder with two other cars up ahead. In about as long as it took me to think "Oh good, whatever it is doesn't look serious and it's all off to the side," I realized that the police officers were all positioned behind their vehicles with guns drawn, including shotguns and assault rifles... and we were closing in on this scene at 70 mph.
The car in front of us stopped and pulled far to the left, and we did the same, trying to put some distance between us and what appeared to be an impending showdown. One of the officers stopped the traffic coming up behind us, and they began issuing instructions to the occupants of one of the cars over a loudspeaker, ordering first the driver, and then, one by one, the four other occupants out of the car and onto the ground. It was literally just like an episode of "Cops", only in live action from a couple hundred feet away. All the occupants were eventually taken into custody, although the last one out of the car kept dropping his hands down instead of keeping them raised over his head, making for a couple tense moments. Once they were all cuffed and under control we were allowed on our merry way. Welcome to Oklahoma!
I've included some pictures below....quality isn't the greatest but they were shot through a window, with me trying not to draw attention the the fact that I was taking pictures!
The scene as we pulled up:
Securing the suspects:
Securing the vehicle. The guy in the green uniform on the right was packing some serious heat...looked like an M-4 assault rifle.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
VORTEX2....Coming soon!!!!
We leave for VORTEX2 in the morning....so in the next couple weeks I will hopefully have lots of stories and pictures to share as we traverse the plains hunting 'naders and eating steak!
I'm not sure how much I'll have to share over the next week or so since we'll mostly be doing prep/ramp up, but starting 5/11 we're going to deploying to wherever the storms are, so stay tuned!!!
I'm not sure how much I'll have to share over the next week or so since we'll mostly be doing prep/ramp up, but starting 5/11 we're going to deploying to wherever the storms are, so stay tuned!!!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Snow Day! Part II: A lovely day for a picnic
Just after we returned from our first foray into the snowy outdoors, Miranda and I both learned that we wouldn't have to work today. NC State canceled classes, and Miranda's boss told her not to come in as the roads were quite treacherous. After spending an hour or so watching some of our neighbors try to negotiate the icy parking lot (several were unable to make it up the hill and eventually gave up!) we decided that venturing anywhere in the car was out of the question....but that didn't mean we had to stay inside.
We hatched a plan to go have a picnic in the snow over at Lake Crabtree, which could be reached entirely by foot along one of our local greenways. We donned our cold weather hiking gear (which as you may imagine gets little use down here) filled up my new thermos with vegetable soup, rousted the hound from her slumber on my bed, and headed out into the wintry goodness. There were a suprising number of people out on the greenway, many with sleds in tow, as even the slightest slope was being turned into a sledding hill.
It took us an hour or so to make it to Lake Crabtree, where we enjoyed our soup, and of course, took more pictures.
Thus ends our wintry adventure for 2009. We ended up with around 4 inches of snow, although it was already starting to melt by the time we made it back to the apartment. There may be some lingering effects though, as threats of black ice as the snow melt re-freezes has already closed many area schools for tomorrow, and State has canceled classes until 10AM. These effects shouldn't linger too long though, as temps should be up into the 50s by the weekend. But for now, we're enjoying our little taste of winter!
We hatched a plan to go have a picnic in the snow over at Lake Crabtree, which could be reached entirely by foot along one of our local greenways. We donned our cold weather hiking gear (which as you may imagine gets little use down here) filled up my new thermos with vegetable soup, rousted the hound from her slumber on my bed, and headed out into the wintry goodness. There were a suprising number of people out on the greenway, many with sleds in tow, as even the slightest slope was being turned into a sledding hill.
It took us an hour or so to make it to Lake Crabtree, where we enjoyed our soup, and of course, took more pictures.
Miranda enjoys some soup during our wintry picnic. By the way...if you ever decide to go for a walk in a snow storm, and want to bring some warm soup along....I highly recommend a Thermos brand thermos. Definitely burned my mouth with the first sip, even after an hour of it sitting in the thermos strapped to the outside of my bag!
To give you an idea of how much snow there was, I took a picture of one of the benches with the accumulated snow on top...we probably ended up getting about 3-4" from the storm, not too shabby by NC standards.
In addition to soup, trail mix was also on the menu, and Dixie wanted a sample. Apparently the two biscuits she'd had by this point were insufficient!
A view of the greenway heading toward the lake.
The picnic shelter where we had lunch. Miranda is surveying the lake while enjoying her soup.
Between the two pictures below, I managed to catch Dixie in mid-sneeze....note the facial expressions.
It was still snowing pretty hard while we were at the lake, as evidenced by this picture, although it began to let up shortly after we left, and was pretty much done by the time we got home.
One last shot of our intrepid explorers braving the frigid fracas.
What better way to end a day of playing in the snow than with a nice nap in the sun on a warm bed!
Thus ends our wintry adventure for 2009. We ended up with around 4 inches of snow, although it was already starting to melt by the time we made it back to the apartment. There may be some lingering effects though, as threats of black ice as the snow melt re-freezes has already closed many area schools for tomorrow, and State has canceled classes until 10AM. These effects shouldn't linger too long though, as temps should be up into the 50s by the weekend. But for now, we're enjoying our little taste of winter!
Snow Day! Part I: Snow-hound
Central North Carolina received its first significant snowfall since Miranda and I moved down here today, resulting in an extension of the MLK weekend for both of us. The snow started early this morning, having accumulated about 2" by the time we got up around 7. This was a bit of a pleasant surprise, as the latest model trends by bedtime had suggested that the heaviest snow may end up shifting south and east of Raleigh, leaving us with a bust. Since this was the Hound's first snow experience (as far as we know, at least) we of course had to document her morning walk for posterity.
In short order, though she realized that the snow wasn't going to hurt her and it was business as usual, with the occasional shake of the head to clear the flakes off her nose!
At first, Dixie wasn't so sure about all the white stuff being a little cautious as she descended the stairs. This was after some quizzical looks out the window at her newly whitened domain.
In short order, though she realized that the snow wasn't going to hurt her and it was business as usual, with the occasional shake of the head to clear the flakes off her nose!
By the time we were on our way back, Dixie was kicking up the flakes in her dash for breakfast (much to the chagrin of Miranda, trying to keep upright in the slippery conditions!)
The greenway didn't look too green this morning!!
And the creek looked downright cold!
Dyansty dr. was snowy...no plows had visited yet.
And tree-lined Sudbury was very picturesque as well.
Just to prove the snow did fall in NC...here's our apartment sign nestled in a new blanket of snow.
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