May 10, 2010: No tornadoes for us

Some pictures.. I'll post the story later.

Below is a 'fake tornado'. It looks wedge-like, but no tornado.

First Big Day

Lots of nervous chatter this morning as we go into our first high risk severe weather day. All of the ingredients are right for a big outbreak and even the older dudes who have seen a hundred twisters have looks in their eyes that show something more than a leisurely tornado chase. These fast-moving storms (45-50kt storm motions) will test the nerves of everyone here. I just hope whatever twisters land aren't over any populated areas. My biggest fear is not being picked up in the wind, but having to drive through a demolished town immediately afterwards. Wish us luck!

SPC's convective outlook for today

Probability of tornadoes

"Hurry Up and Wait"

Today, the Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV) made an appearance in our parking lot and hogged up all the attention. So clearly, I had to be a tourist too and get my picture with it.
Here's Jeff with the DOW7 of which he is working in. Jeff was my math tutor when I was a freshman in college.
We waited until 3:30pm for word of where we were going. We had two potential target areas, but the one east of where we are staying looked like it was going to be a night time storm break out - which ended up to be true. In the meantime, the usual shenanigans were going on.
We finally rushed out of Hays, KS to sit in a parking lot for 40 mins in WaKeeney to watch the developing storms and receive commands from our control unit.
I can't tell you how many times today I thought to myself, "I could do this forever". The whole working with very interactive people, all fit to be field employees, planning routes and watching storms develop, not to mention driving to them. Too bad it can't be a full time job. It combines several of my favorite things in one - weather, maps, people, and going places.

We ended up deploying to a developing cell near Lyle, KS

I took a bit of video but there wasn't anything too impressive today except for some lightning nickel-sized hail, and multiple roadrunners. What I am going to do is rather than post videos on here, I'll likely post some videos on Youtube once things really get started and link them from here.

The chase was fun - we were up on some back country dirt roads. Another one of the vans got stuck on a dirt road that turned to mucky mud - as well as the media vehicle, and another van by trying to help the other van. I am lucky we didn't take a 'wrong turn' - I thank my awesome navigator for that.

Monday looks like high potential for a tornado outbreak. We could have several days in a row of chasing, and potential to see my first twister. (eek!!)

We're in Kansas, Anymore.

We headed north today to set up camp for a Thursday deployment. We will not likely see any tornadoes tomorrow, but should get a test run with a supercell and hail. I am ok with a gradual introduction to this whole driving-in-severe-weather thing. I have been told my particular section of deployment could be interesting with hail. I am kind of glad I don't know too much at this point because it is making me less afraid of what could potentially happen. Monday, though it is a long range forecast, is looking favorable right now for a potential tornado breakout. Stay posted on that one!
Today we performed an intercomparision between mesonets to see how close the instrumentation is recording.
Here's Kristin - my navigator and expert. She gets to make decisions and chose navigable roads for the first few weeks of the project.
We drove near Greensburg KS today, the site of an EF5 tornado in May 2007 which completely obliterated 95% of the town.
I caught a shot of the "tornado pods" that the CSWR is deploying. These are the "Dororthys" of today, about 50 lbs each, created to throw in front of an approaching tornado. This is the responsibility of another group of scientists.

Still having fun out here despite not experiencing any storms yet. I am surrounded by some of the top severe weather experts in the country, as well as rising experts who are my own age. It's quite inspiring, really! It is a strange feeling to feel so comfortable and so "at home" but at the same time, being completely intimidated by the breadth of knowledge of the people surrounding you. Maybe my brain is running in circles again. Maybe you understand?

Woodward, OK

Day 4, another stand-by day, aka shooting-the-breeze-day I have been loving all of this down time. V2 finally met as a complete team today as the Boulder crew joined us in Woodward to advance to our next destination. An overwhelming amount of new people to meet.. I am still working on the people who were all in Norman! There are over 100 people on the project between scientists and lots of media coverage.
Some of the mobile mesonets hang still for a bit and attract attention from locals.
Today was uber-hot and I got a sunburn/tan. We all hung around reading books and some of us working while we waited to be able to check back into the hotel.

Life is a Highway

Not in Norman anymore - our first relocation. No storms in our domain expected for a few more days....

Ladies and Gentlemen, There are HILLS in Oklahoma!

Another "standby" day for Vortex2 - Kiel, a new buddy from OU suggested going hiking. I may have judged ahead of time and said "what? where?", thinking there is nowhere to hike in Oklahoma, give me a break. But, I was wrong again.
We headed about an hour southwest of Norman to the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge aka the "Wichitas".
Lots of pretty flowers, awesome rock formations, buffalo, and longhorned cows.
After our wandering about to a couple of trickling waterfalls, we headed to Meers, one of the best ranked burger places in the country - and trust me, I have had my share of good burgers - these outdo the Hot Spot on the Dalton Highway, hands down - which says a lot. They actually slaughter their own cows at Meers out back. What I love is how in the middle-of-nowhere this place is.
Chasing-wise, the most exciting thing we have seen so far is some virga. But enough of a reason to stop on the side of the road.

Vortex2 begins!!!

Hi everyone! I wanted to give you a quick update while I back blog the road trip from Alaska. I am down here in Norman, Oklahoma, and today was the official start date of Vortex2! Now while you're probably thinking we are in Arkansas going after the tornadoes there, we are unfortunately not. Below is a schematic of our 'domain'. Our domain was created to cover areas with plenty of roads and high visibility, since what we're doing is on the risky side. Therefore, where the storms are in Arkansas today is too hilly for us to chase. Also, we cannot chase in the dark because it is too dangerous not having daylight visibility.
So what am I doing exactly? I am on the PSU/NSSL mobile mesonet team, consisting of 6 minivans with elaborate weather stations on the top. Our goal is to record data from the outflow of tornadoes as we literally drive as close as safely possible to the storms. That being said, we are just driving the entire time when on a storm. Therefore, I will not likely be able to do any jumping photos in front of a tornado - bummer. Below is an idealistic schematic of our deployment. I am driving P4 - which is the vehicle to the north of the rotation. Sounds like it is difficult to actually keep this formation since roads don't exactly run east to west and north to south.This morning to blow some time, I took a self-guided tour of the National Weather Center here in Norman and said hi to Dorothy, the bad-guys-from-Twister's instrument, and the real original Vortex tornado pod. The pod used back in the original Vortex experiment weighed 400 lbs. Can you imagine trying to roll that off of a truck into the path of the tornado? Me either. I can't wait to meet the people who were there for the first Vortex to hear the stories. I am not sure how much the current tornado pods weigh.

The building comes complete with a Chickfila in the Flying Cow Cafe.

And, now! The mobile mesonets!!

I get to drive a black van, which means I get to be the bad guys from Twister. Jackpot!

On a completely different note, since we were bumming around Norman (which I have really, REALLY been enjoying), Chris organized some of us to go to a minor league baseball game of the Oklahoma City Redhawks. They lost, but we had fun.. and it was Star Wars night - which was entertaining. As you can see, Jango Fett (better Joey and Reed??) posed for me. I felt a little bit underdressed for the occasion.

Here's the baseball game crew - Andrew, Richard, me, Chris, and Derek.

I never thought I'd say this, but Oklahoma is actually a lot of fun. I mean, how could you not have fun when everything is low-key, you're staying in hotels with running water and swimming pools, making new friends and seeing old ones, no one is forcing you to wake up until a weather briefing at 10am, and you're living a dream you've had for nearly 15 years. Norman itself is a really nice town, and the OU campus is awesome. I don't know why I envisioned something totally different, but I'm glad those uneducated assumptions have been washed away.

Here is the 2010 Vortex2 field catalog if you are interested in following us. We're also on the Weather Channel a lot.

And I guess I should make a disclaimer that anything I say on here is not representative of NOAA/NSSL/PSU/Vortex2 and all that. I like to think people reading this blog are smarter than that, but it's not a bad thing to clarify.

Day 10: Turning 25 on the road from Denver, CO to Norman, OK

Mileage: 682
Total Mileage: 4593The most dreaded day of driving was upon me, and it was my birthday. It just worked out that way since I had to be in Norman on the afternoon of April 30th. I was sad to leave Colorado, since I was getting comfortable there. It seemed like the reason I was doing this drive was over after I left Denver that morning.
The dreaded part was the flatness. I'll be seeing a lot of this this summer, but that is just where the storms are, so that was a choice I made going into this. In a way, it was neat because it was all different from anything I've experienced, and it looked as the Great Plains should look.
It was EXTREMELY windy this day, winds 40 mph gusting to 50 mph in spots, so I had to take the drive slow in fear of sliding off of the road. I also had to stop and take my bike off of the top of the car and shove it inside since it was creating an unmanageable sail. It took me 13 hours with minimal stops to get from Denver to Norman. On the bright side, I received a lot of phone calls to make the time go quickly. Thanks to everyone who contributed to that - it REALLY helped out!
I was shocked to find that Oklahoma is actually not all that flat - it has some hills! I expected pancake flat but it is not so bad and definitely hills on all of the roads - hillier than the Colorado roads! Talk about backwards of my imagination. Finally got into Norman at 12:30am that night. A long day it was, but I made it - no speeding tickets, no loss of items or limbs, and on top of that, I didn't pay for lodging one night the ENTIRE 10 days. How's that for an accomplishment?!