VORTEX2 was an expanded second VORTEX project with field phases from 10 May until 13 June 2009 and 1 May until 15 June 2010. VORTEX2's goals were studying why some thunderstorms produce tornadoes while others do not, how to make more accurate and longer lead time tornado forecasts and warnings, and tornado structure. VORTEX2 is by far the largest and most ambitious tornado study ever with over 100 scientific participants from many different universities and research laboratories.
"We still do not completely understand the processes that lead to tornado formation and shape its development. We hope that VORTEX2 will provide the data we need to learn more about the development of tornadoes and in time help forecasters give people more advance warning before a tornado strikes," says Roger Wakimoto, now director of the National Center of Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and a principal investigator for VORTEX2.
"Then you can get first responders to be better prepared—police, fire, medical personnel, even power companies. Now, that's not even remotely possible," said Stephan P. Nelson, a program director in the atmospheric sciences division of the National Science Foundation.
Joshua Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colorado proposes, "if we can increase that lead time from 13 minutes to half an hour, then the average person at home could do something different. Maybe they can seek a community shelter instead of just going into their bathtub. Maybe they can get their family to better safety if we can give them a longer warning and a more precise warning."
VORTEX2 deployed 50 vehicles customized with mobile radar, including the Doppler On Wheels (DOW) radars, SMART Radars, the NOXP radar, a fleet of instrumented vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, deployable instrument arrays called Sticknet and Podnet, and mobile weather balloon launching equipment. Over 100 scientists and crew will research tornadoes and supercell thunderstorms in the Tornado Alley of the United States plains between Texas and Minnesota. A number of institutions are involved in the US$11.9 million project: Finland, the National Weather Service, the Bureau of Meteorology in Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Environment Canada, universities across the United States, and the NOAA Storm Prediction Center.
The project included DOW6, DOW7, Rapid-Scan DOW, SMART-RADARs, NOXP, UMASS-X, UMASS-W, and CIRPAS for their mobile radar contingent. The Doppler on Wheels are supplied by the Center for Severe Weather Research CSWR, and the SMART-Radars from the University of Oklahoma. National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) has supplied the NOXP radar, as well as several other radar units from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the Office of Naval Research and Texas Tech University (TTU). NSSL and CSWR are supplying mobile mesonets. Mobile radiosonde launching vehicles are provided by NSSL, NCAR, and the State University of New York at Oswego (SUNY Oswego). There are quite a few other deployable state of the art instrumentation, such as Sticknets from TTU, Tornado PODS from CSWR, and four disdrometers from University of Colorado CU, and University of Illinois.
VORTEX2 technology allowed trucks with radar to be placed in and near tornadic storms and allowed continuous observations of the tornado activity. Howard Bluestein, a meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma said, "We will be able to distinguish between rain, hail, dust, debris, flying cows."
As well photogrammetry teams, damage survey teams, unmanned aircraft and weather balloon launching vans will help to surround the tornadoes and thunderstorms. The equipment amassed will allow three dimensional pictures of the storms to be collected with radars and other instruments every 75 seconds, and resolution of the tornado and tornadic storm cells as close as 200 feet (61 m).
Scientists met May 10 and held a class which taught the crews how to launch the Tornado Pods which will need to be sent off within 45 seconds. Vortex 2 is equipped with 12 Tornado PODS which are instruments mounted onto 1 meter (3.3 ft) towers which measure wind velocity and direction. The aim is that the measurements are taken in the centre of the tornado. Once the pods are deployed, the teams repeat the process at the next location until finally the teams return to the south of the tornado to retrieve the pods with the recorded data. The process is then repeated again. This happens within 2 miles (3.2 km) or 4 minutes away from the tornado itself.
The team will have 24 two-meter (7 ft) high portable sticknets which can be set up at various locations around tornado storm cells to measure wind fields, provide atmospheric readings, and record acoustically the hail and precipitation.
Scientists are still seeking to understand which supercell thunderstorms which form mesocyclones will further produce tornadoes.
Updates on the progress of the project will be posted on the Vortex 2 home page. The scientists have also started a blog of live reports. "Even though this field phase seems to be the most spectacular and seems like it's a lot of work, by far the majority of what we're doing is when we go back to our labs, when we work with each other, when we work with our students to try to figure out just what is it that we've collected," Wurman said. "It's going to take years to digest this data and to really get the benefit of this." Penn State University will feature the public release of the initial scientific findings in the fall.
The forecasters are determining the best probability of sighting a tornado. As the trucks traveled to Clinton, OK from Childress, TX, they found mammatus clouds, and lightning at sundown May 13. The project finally encountered its first tornado on the afternoon of June 5 when they successfully intercepted a tornado in southern Goshen County, Wyoming which lasted for approximately 25 minutes. One of their vehicles, Probe 1, suffered hail damage during the intercept. Later that evening, embedded Weather Channel reporter Mike Bettes reported that elements of VORTEX2 had intercepted a second tornado in Nebraska.
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