VORTEX 2: Chasing Down the Storm

If you're like me, you remember going to see Twister in the theater. I had just started high school at the time, and there was a certain appeal to the idea of barreling down two-lane country highways in a pickup truck full of weather instruments in hot pursuit of a powerful tornado, all in the name of science. (Bonus trivia: I was not alone – many colleges saw a marked increase in enrollment in meteorology programs in the years following Twister!) Of course, today, as a Ph.D. student in meteorology, I realize that real meteorological field work isn't all about speeding and adventure.

Now, more than a decade after Twister, meteorologists and non-meteorologists alike have the chance to see a genuine meteorological field operation in action. The long-awaited VORTEX 2 project is in full swing, and via the wonders of the internet (and in particular through blogs and Facebook), anyone can follow along as dozens of scientists converge on the Great Plains to hunt down tornadoes in a veritable armada of radar trucks, mobile mesonets, and support vehicles. While some of the images, including the impressive shot on the right, may evoke scenes from Twister, the reality of meteorological field work is not quite what Hollywood imagined.


VORTEX 2 is a two-year scientific field project, scheduled to run through mid-June of this year, and again in May and June of 2010, building on the results from the original VORTEX project, which occurred during 1994 and 1995. During those months, meteorologists from around the world will prowl the Great Plains in a fleet of around 40 vehicles, collecting data on severe thunderstorms, and in particular, tornadoes. VORTEX is an acronym for “Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Thunderstorms Experiment” (technically, it's more of a “backronym”, where the name was engineered to produce a specific, catchy acronym—a practice common in naming scientific experiments, but I digress). The goals of VORTEX 2 are precisely what it says on the tin: gathering data on the formation and origins of tornadoes using mobile radar platforms, mesonet vehicles, UAV's, and deployable “Tornado PODs” to be dropped in the path of tornadoes (think Toto, not Dorothy. Better yet, think one of these).

Unlike the thrill-a-minute action envisioned in Twister, real meteorological field work is not nearly so glamorous and exciting. First of all, tornadoes have been rather scarce this May, meaning a lot of downtime for the VORTEX 2 scientists. Such fieldwork can also be at times difficult, tiring, and physically demanding. Many students and scientists in VORTEX 2 must essentially clear their schedules for a month and be prepared on any given day, at the whim of the atmosphere, to get up early and drive weather equipment hundreds of miles across the open plains to reach the next day's target location. Far from steak, potatoes, and gravy at Aunt Meg's house, the food in a real-life field experiment often consists of hotel continental breakfasts, fast-food hurriedly grabbed during downtime, and, for the particularly strong-of-constitution, the occasional gas station burrito.

Still, for the scientists of VORTEX 2, the challenges are well worth it—studies have shown that results from the first VORTEX project during the mid 1990's resulted in an improvement in tornado warnings in subsequent years. The participants of VORTEX 2 are hopeful that this latest continuation of that work will again lead to better tornado forecasts and tornado warnings, and lives saved.

For more information on VORTEX 2, check out their official site on the NSSL webpage. For more information on the severe weather, including the latest up-to-date weather information and severe weather alerts, tune in to your local NOAA weather radio station (see this NWS site for more information), or check the the NWS homepage. And of course, if it's weather data you're looking for, there's no better place than right here on HOOT to find it!



Story is © Nate Snook, 2009