VORTEX Projects - VORTEX1

The VORTEX1 project sought to understand how a tornado is produced by deploying around 18 vehicles that were equipped with customized instruments used to measure and analyze the weather around a tornado. The project has also stated that it is interested in why some supercells produce tornadoes while others do not. It also concerned itself with why some supercells form violent tornadoes versus weak tornadoes. The original project took place in 1994 and 1995, while several smaller studies were conducted from 1996 to 2008. VORTEX1 documented the entire life cycle of a tornado for the first time. Severe weather warnings improved after the research collected from VORTEX 1 and many believe that VORTEX1 contributed to this improvement. “An important finding from the original VORTEX experiment was that the factors responsible for causing tornadoes happen on smaller time and space scales than scientists had thought. New advances will allow for a more detailed sampling of a storm’s wind, temperature and moisture environment and lead to a better understanding of why tornadoes form – and how they can be more accurately predicted,” said Stephan Nelson, NSF program director for physical and dynamic meteorology.

VORTEX had the capability to fly doppler weather radar above the tornado approximately every five minutes.

VORTEX research allowed the National Weather Service to provide tornado warnings to residents with a lead time of 13 minutes. A federal research meteorologist, Don Burgess, estimates that the "false alarms" pertaining to severe weather by the National Weather Service have declined by 10 percent.

The movie Twister was at least partially inspired by the VORTEX project.