Bill Discussing the First Chase Day Weather
How did the Missouri State University storm chase class come about? Well I can tell you from my end, it all started with an e-mail.
I have been a per course instructor at MSU (back then SMSU) for many years. As you might imagine, the course I have helped teach is Introduction to Atmospheric Science or GRY 135. One of the conditions of teaching this course is that my career job comes first when the weather turns bad. Translation: I sometimes cancel class to be on T.V.! Well, during our infamous “La Nina” spring of 2008, this happened a lot. So much in fact that despite the understanding I had with the university, I felt compelled to e-mail some folks to say “sorry” and also “thanks for letting me do this”.
One of the people on the list was Dr. Bill Corcoran, the professor in charge of the meteorology class and a long time acqaintence. I got a reply in my inbox later that afternoon from Bill. As I clicked it, I expected the e-mail to say something like, “well, we understand” or “duty calls” or perhaps some other suggestion. Instead, and completely out of left field, the message body said, “do you want to help lead a storm chase class?”
Taken a back and under yet more intense weather that evening, my only short response was “yes, it would be a dream come true, let me collect my thoughts and get back to you!”
This all happened about 14 months prior to when the actual class would occur. During that time, it was decided that an intersession course was the best plan. The students would start with a few days in the classroom and then hit the road. Dr. Corcoran and I would be the instructors but we also had uber student Matt Gingery, a fellow storm chaser, in the class who proved to be invaluable (well after all, he did have the satellite-delivered weather system!) .
None of us had ever done anything like this. We ended up with a roster of 21 students plus one additional driver we picked up early on in the adventure. I don’t know if anyone has ever really thought about this but the logistics of a storm chase of this size and length are a bit daunting.
We had three vans that needed gas, windshields washed (always had bug juice on them), bathroom and/or food breaks, arrangements for a motel for nearly 30 people everyday (almost didn’t happen when VORTEX 2 pulled into town!), equipment loading and checking, technology charging, unloading and securing the vans, planning the next day’s chase, navigation questions, deciding which storm to stay on and which one to leave, “tweeting” and other social network updates, shooting photos and videos, explaining clouds formations and other meteorological phenomenon, etc.
Matt Gingery, Ryan Barnhart and Bill Corcoran on the day we picked up the vans.
The dates were set: the class would run from May 28th until June 7th. Just as excitement over the class was really beginning to build in the middle of May, a weather pattern not exactly friendly to thunderstorms began to unfold and our team was beginning to wonder if we would be chasing tumbleweeds instead! More on the “death ridge” as chasers call it and on the prep days before the actual chase in the next installment!
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