As for my last few days with VORTEX2…they were a bit disappointing, actually, because we only pseudo-operated (meaning we sat around and waited for something targetable to form, which never did) or had a total down day where nothing happened. I was hoping for a bit more action, but the PI’s (principal investigators) seemed to take a more discriminatory approach to storms because of certain goals they wanted to accomplish. Completely understandable, but a little sad for me. With the days that I did have left, here’s how I spent my time:

On a travel day to South Dakota, stopping by Devil’s Tower in Wyoming…mashed potatoes, anyone?

After driving all the way up to South Dakota, we ended up not operating and having another travel day, but it was a relatively short drive, so we decided to stop by Wall Drug and take in all the tourist-y goodness.

Wall Drug also wasn’t far from the Badlands, so we took a couple of hours and took in the gorgeous rock formations. Above is my truck, NCAR2, with the Badlands in the background.

After all that traveling, we had one day where there weren’t any targetable storms, a down day spent in North Platte, Nebraska, and my last day, spent in “standby” mode. We were waiting to see if storms would form in our area (which they eventually didn’t) and I was able to launch one last balloon.

While the end of my time with VORTEX2 wasn’t so action-packed, I wanted to take a minute and reflect on some of the memories from my time this year that really stuck out (in no particular order):

• Seeing 3 tornadoes and 1 funnel
• Being caught between two tornadic supercells
• My truck catching on fire
• A five-hour drive to our hotel after operating all day
• Attempting to launch balloons in 45+ mph winds
• Conversing with a guy who clearly had too much to drink while getting ready for a balloon launch from a high-stress storm-relative location
• Prepping for at the time was supposed to be a live on national TV weather-balloon launch and mini-interview with Mike Bettes from The Weather Channel
• Being subjected to the stares/questioning looks of many locals as we drove through towns
• After a long operations day, evacuating from our hotel and waiting outside late at night because of smoke in the hallways
• Experiencing some beautiful and picturesque storms
• Running into a college friend who was also chasing at a gas station in the middle of nowhere
• Spending the night in a hotel without power on the day of a tornado outbreak
• Driving past tornado damage on the interstate the day after a tornado outbreak
• Being in the middle of a “chaser convergence” controversy
• Needing to remind myself constantly what day it was
• A late-night concert right outside my hotel window causing me to stay awake well past a decent hour
• Eating WAY too much Subway
• Waiting in long lines late at night to check into hotels
• VORTEX2 being thanked by a local Emergency Manager for going out and doing what we do
• Enjoying every minute of a stormchase, in constant wonder of the beauty nature produces

While I can’t list every experience I had this year–good or bad–I do know that VORTEX2 has been a success in many ways and I am truly grateful to have had the opportunity to participate. As the data collection wraps up in the next two weeks and the data analysis begins, I hope to keep in mind the people I’ve met, the stories I’ve heard, the storms I’ve seen, and the fun I’ve had. I’m excited for the research to come and the new knowledge revealed through this data I’ve helped collect!

You can also check out my video of a launch in these conditions here and videos George Bryan took from where his team was launching balloons here. (I highly recommend watching these…it’s incredible how much violence these balloons were subjected to!)

The next day the winds were much calmer, but operations were still a bit of a challenge because of the lack of a good road network in southeastern Colorado and southwestern Kansas. The storm we were on had a history of producing tornadoes, and my team was lucky enough to be able to see one of them from 38 miles away (hooray for high plains visibility)! The pictures I have are not that good because it was so far away, but it was still great to see a tornado, especially from so far away. Since I don’t have a good picture of the tornado, I’ll show you guys some other great shots I got that day:

After operations were over, our target storm became a bit more linear:

Then the sun started to set and there were some beautiful colors!

Another storm out to our west looking beautiful!

The challenges on this day weren’t over, however. We had a *five hour* drive to our hotel once operations were over (around 9 pm). When we originally picked our hotel for the night, we figured we would be operating a bit farther north and west than we actually did. Of course, Mother Nature had different plans. It was a rough drive, but seeing a tornado and some gorgeous views along the way, along with successful data collection made it worth it.

Finally, yesterday’s operations, while successful were not ideal either due to the logistics of being near the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The Front Range is full of busy urban areas, and just to the east of it there’s very few roads. Despite these challenges, VORTEX2 successfully deployed on a slow-moving supercell that had a history of producing a tornado. The plus side of working just east of the foothills of the Rockies is really flat terrain where you can see for miles and miles! Here’s some shots of the target storm:

And a beautiful Colorado sunset!

Today’s a travel day for the VORTEX2 armada, meaning that we’re getting into position for possible operations this weekend. Northern Plains, here we come!

Wednesday, however, was a very different story. The Storm Prediction Center had issued a high risk for much of Oklahoma, meaning that they were expecting another outbreak of severe weather, and in particular, numerous tornadoes. The VORTEX2 armada jumped on a storm soon after it initiated, expecting it to mature quickly and become tornadic. While there were reports of a brief tornado early on in its lifetime, the storm went through several cycles of gaining and losing its supercell structure. My assigned storm-relative position that day was in the forward flank, meaning that I was northeast of the business end of the storm. Ideally I am a bit to the left of where the annotated cold front (associated with the FFD on the image below) begins to curve to the north:

My storm relative position is a bit more precarious than the others on the sounding team, because there is a threat for lightning and occasionally hail is we get too deep into the forward flank (right under the FFD on the above image). This information is important because I ended up being squeezed between two storms as the day wore on: the target storm to my west, where there was a threat of heavy rain, lightning, and potentially hail, and a second storm to my east, where a tornado as well as some hail had been reported. Overtime, these two storms merged closer and closer together, essentially putting me between a rock and a hard place. Because of the few road options allowing my team to escape, we ended up being quite close to the tornadic storm to our east! So close in fact, that we saw another tornado touch down near Stillwater, OK as we were moving east in anticipation of finding an escape route south:

I tried enhancing the contrast in the image, so hopefully you can see the tornado (but even if you can’t, trust me, it was there). We were probably only a couple of miles from the tornado, the closest I’ve ever been to one. It was definitely intense trying to navigate the storm carefully but also trying to get to safety. While we were only a couple miles from our escape route, we had to stop a few times and make sure the more dangerous parts of the storm (i.e. the tornado and hail) weren’t going to overtake us. This was also made more difficult by the numerous chasers and gawkers out on the road, many of whom were not driving safely. Thankfully, the driver of my vehicle kept her cool and got us to our destination safely!

In the end, we were down for the count in terms of being able to collect more data; our mission was simply to be safe! I felt bad that we weren’t in a position to collect more data, but we were treated to some nice views of the storm once we were in the clear:

At this point, operations were called off because the target storm was more of a squall line than a supercell. As we headed to the hotel, the sun was setting we were further treated to some gorgeous views!

Despite the intensity of the day, I feel so thankful that we got out safe and were able to see such beauty. Now it’s time to recharge and get ready for the next round of storms!

Unfortunately, soon after the tornado dissipated my team had to turn around and find a different route to get in position to launch. This was because storms were forming so rapidly that we were prevented from reaching our desired storm relative position. Launching in the correct spot was also made difficult by the poor road network. While we were near a sizeable city (Odessa, TX), it is never a good idea to launch a weather balloon (or deploy other weather instrumentation) in an urban area due to traffic, buildings obstructing views, power lines, etc. As a result, we ended up dodging a few more storms (including one which was producing rotation right over our heads!) before finally being able to execute our mission. Here’s a shot of that rotation I was referring to (a little left of center, pendant hanging down):

I don’t believe that the rotating cloud pendant was trying to produce a tornado, but it definitely got my blood pumping nonetheless!

After some careful maneuvering through the road network, my team was finally able to launch twice in our assigned storm relative position. Because numerous storms continued to fire, however, the slightly more isolated storm we were targeting merged with other storms in the area and formed a squall line. As a result, we needed to change our sampling strategy while also making sure we were staying out of the way of the squall line! My team ended up launching two balloons in front of the squall line in coordination with two other balloon teams also positioned in front of the squall line. Here’s a panorama view of what the squall line looked like from our location:

After our second launch in front of this squall line, operations were called off because it was becoming very difficult for teams to continue their respective missions. The best “escape route” back to the hotel ended up taking us right through the northern half of this beast. I was a little nervous about the prospect of hail, but it ended up being a lot of heavy rain and frequent lightning.

Another consequence of this squall line was quite a bit of flooding in the area. If you’ve ever been to western Texas, then you know how poor the drainage is there. Not only is it quite flat, but the soil cannot soak up much moisture. Thus, with this heavy rain producer, city streets often looked like this:

Several streets were actually impassable (even for our large pickup trucks), so some creative navigating was necessary for us to finally reach our hotel. Also, as a word of caution, this is NOT the correct thing to do when you see a flooded street, especially if you are in a small sedan:

Turn around don’t drown!

All in all it was a really fun day–I got to see a tornado, experience rotation over my head, frequent lightning, and heavy rains and flooding! Looking forward to seeing even more of that in the coming weeks :)

After a late night on Monday, the VORTEX2 armada woke up on Tuesday and headed toward western Oklahoma. The drive was humbling, as the scars from the previous day’s storms were fresh along the highway just east of Oklahoma City. Twisted limbs and demolished structures reminded us all of the great need to better understand this destructive phenomena. With renewed perspective, we traveled onward to our next destination.

The set-up for storms was quite good on Tuesday, but was conditional on their formation. As a result, the armada spent several hours waiting around for initiation. The NC State team launched several weather balloons to track the evolution of the environment and to see if conditions improved.  Eventually a few storms began to fire, though they often teased us and dissipated despite the odds being in favor of their maintenance, like this storm that was the target for about 20 minutes before it completely evaporated:

Finally near sunset, a long-lived storm formed that was suitable for VORTEX2′s interests.  Unfortunately, since it was almost dark, the visibility wasn’t very good and I only managed to snap one good shot of the storm:

Despite the less than favorable viewing conditions, the armada still managed to collect some very useful data on the storm, which also reportedly produced a brief funnel cloud.

On Wednesday, storm formation was expected in the eastern panhandle of Texas/western Oklahoma, but there was some worry that there would not be a discrete isolated cell that the armada could target. Patience was the name of the game, and our waiting eventually paid off, as the isolated storm which became our target turned out to be the best deployment yet for VORTEX2 this year! All of the teams were in the right place at the right time and fulfilling their missions to a T. This deployment was also more fun for me, since my mission placed me a bit closer to the action, making it much more exciting :). However, it was also a bit more stressful because there were times I knew I needed to launch a balloon ASAP and get the heck out of there before the hail core engulfed me or I was struck by lightning. The stress was magnified when locals spotted us and started asking questions, further delaying a launch or departure. This happened soon after I took this shot:

We were sitting in a hotel parking lot in the middle of launch preparations when this guy walked up and started asking us questions and was telling us how much he loved storms. We managed to press upon him relatively quickly our need to get our launch done and leave, which turned out to be a good decision because a tornado came through that town just a short while later! There was no way we could have seen it (too much rain and too late at night), but the armada collected a really great dataset on this storm. I’m looking forward to more successful deployments like this in the coming days!

The forecast was also calling for these tornadic storms to be moving extremely fast (~45 mph), so it was going to be difficult for the VORTEX2 armada to stick with one storm. Instead, it was decided that the armada would create a network of the various instrumentation and sample the storms as they moved through the network. The team that I am a part of (the mobile soundings team) decided to create a box around the armada, and my assigned position was in the upper right corner. While there were a LOT of tornadoes in the area (including one which narrowly missed the National Weather Center in Norman–see this link for more info), my position was such that I was unable to see any of them. For example, here’s a radar image of a storm producing a significant tornado east of Oklahoma City. My location is at the star (hint–look north and east of the big hook echo near the top of the image):

The combination of the fast-moving storms, high moisture content (which means low cloud bases), topography of the area (there’s a surprising number of trees and hills in that part of Oklahoma),  and my position with respect to the armada, meant that I was unable to see any of the tornadoes that occurred during yesterday’s outbreak. While that was slightly frustrating (I mean, I am a stormchaser who wants to be where the action is), I’m trying to keep in mind a few things: 1) I’m out here for science, not for touring. I helped collect an unprecedented data set on an outbreak of tornadic storms! 2) Many other teams were not in desirable positions, either, so I was not the only one who missed out. 3) I’m out here for a few more weeks, so there’ll be plenty more chances  to be closer to the action. And most importantly 4) I was never in harm’s way the entire day, so I need to be thankful that I wasn’t hurt (nor was anyone else in the VORTEX2 armada!). Unfortunately, there’s been several reports of fatalities and many many homes destroyed. Please pray for those adversely affected by this outbreak.

The adventures did not end as soon as the storms passed through the VORTEX2 network of instrumentation, however. Tornadic storms moved through the location of where we were staying for the night, so by the time teams arrived at their hotel, the power was out. It was a bit surreal to me to be walking around a hotel only lit by the candle in my hand, not to mention doing things like getting ready for bed, brushing teeth, etc, by said candlelight.

There’ll be no rest for the weary, as it looks like the next couple of days will also be active within the VORTEX2 domain. I’ll try to update as best I can, but for now I’ll leave you with a few of the best shots I got yesterday, given my location.

As you can tell by the tilt of the balloon, it was extremely windy yesterday, which made launching at times quite difficult.

View of the backside of some of the storms as they passed to our east along with a brief (and faint) rainbow.

Nice sunset on the way to our hotel.

A couple of lone trees in the middle of a harvested Kansas field

Surface weather station (left) and aspirator (right) used for the balloon launch

And of course everyone’s favorite…plastic Jesus enjoying the storm.

While the sampled storm didn’t produce a tornado, it did show midlevel rotation and even set off the tornado vortex signature (TVS) radar algorithm. Additionally, the storm was scientifically interesting because it was elevated. This means that the air going into the storm (i.e. the inflow) was not rooted at the surface; rather, it was rooted at some level above the surface. So, despite a lack of tornadoes, VORTEX2 still gathered data that will prove fruitful for future research (potentially my own!).

The next couple of days are likely travel/down days for VORTEX2, but the models are indicating a potentially significant event early next week, so it’s time for the armada to rest up, work out some bugs in the software and instruments, and prepare for the next chase!

There’s also been a lot of talk about when we’ll finally be able to get out and chase storms! Well, the Storm Prediction Center has finally issued a slight risk for severe storms in the VORTEX2 domain on Thursday, so it looks like today we’ll be traveling to get in position for that play. The set up looks quite good for Thursday, however there may be some difficulty initiating storms. Cross your fingers that storms form and V2 can finally go out and do what it’s here to do!

One of the first steps Tim Lim (sounding guru from the National Center for Atmospheric Research) shows us is how to use a computer program to set up a balloon launch.

Once the computer program is all set up, next we prep the instrument to be launched. One of the things that has to be done is placing the sonde in an aspirator, which is essentially a fan that blows air on the instrument to help acclimate it to the environment (particularly useful after after sitting in a hot truck for a few hours).

At this point, we also need to do some quality control to the data and make sure the sensors are reading reasonable values. In this photo, Matt (on the far left) is reading a hand held instrument and checking the temperature, relative humidity, etc. to make sure the numbers are similar to what the sonde is measuring.

If the sonde appears to be measuring reasonably, then it’s time to fill the balloon!

The last step (once we double check that the data is coming in) is to attach the sonde to the balloon and launch it:

The project officially kicks off tomorrow (May 1st), but it’s not 100% clear whether we will actually chase and deploy the instruments. The weather pattern for the next few days isn’t too great, so it’s possible that we’ll be sitting in Oklahoma and waiting for the atmosphere to recharge. Here’s hoping we’ll get some great storms (and soon) so we can make use of our training!

The bags contain about a week’s worth of clothes, rain jacket, laptop, digital and video cameras along with their assorted cords and chargers, toiletries, and various amusements (frisbee, playing cards, ipod, novel, crossword puzzle). Bring on the nomadic life!

I’ll be leaving early tomorrow morning and catching a flight to Oklahoma City to meet up with most of the other VORTEX2 teams. The project officially kicks off May 1st, so the two days before the start will be used to make sure all the equipment is in order and do some training on launching balloons to refresh our memories. There’s definitely some high hopes for this year as last year was less than stellar weather-wise. Thankfully, the pattern looks quite favorable for at least the next couple of weeks, so if anything we’ll certainly be busy! Stay tuned for more updates :)