This is a summary of what project Vortex 2 accomplished during their first year of operation. It was a very slow severe weather season in 2009, at least within the project’s time and space domain.
The Missouri State University chase class converged with the Vortex 2 armada in Sterling, CO on the evening of Thursday June 4th, the day before they (and Vortex 2!) caught their first tornado near LaGrange, WY, indicated by the red dot on the map.
Many of you on the trip were aware that Matt Gingery parted ways with us in Clinton, MO while on the way home Sunday to go chase in northwest Missouri! On this day, one storm in particular crossed into extreme northwest Missouri. It was well-sampled by Vortex 2 but non-tornadic during the sampling. I believe Matt blogged about this chase on this site. If not, I’m sure he can chime in!
I’ll be curious to see if data collected from that storm produces any insight as to why a tornado didn’t form.
This is a summary of what project Vortex 2 accomplished during their first year of operation. It was a very slow severe weather season in 2009, at least within the project’s time and space domain.
Our chase class converged with the Vortex 2 armada in Sterling, CO on the evening of Thursday June 4th, the day before we (and they!) caught our first tornado near LaGrange, WY, indicated by the red dot on the map.
Many of you on the trip were aware that Matt Gingery parted ways with us in Clinton, MO while on the way home Sunday to go chase in northwest Missouri! On this day, one storm in particular crossed into extreme northwest Missouri. It was well-sampled by Vortex 2 but non-tornadic during the sampling. I believe Matt blogged about this chase on this site. If not, I’m sure he can chime in!
I’ll be curious to see if data collected from that storm produces any insight as to why a tornado didn’t form.
The Missouri State University Storm Chase Class started in the last days of May 2009 and we left for the actual chase on Sunday May 31st, returning seven days later
A ”death ridge” refers to a pattern of weather in the upper atmosphere where high pressure dominates. This encourages air to sink; a stabilizing effect which all but snuffs out thunderstorms.
Such a pattern was setting up in the middle and late portion of May as the Missouri State University storm chase class was coming together. Dr. Corcoran and I knew that a pattern of high pressure would cause problems for the class. If it set up, where would we go? Would there be anything to chase? The Vortex 2 armada was dismayed over this pattern too. They only had until the middle of June to surround a tornado.
Fortunately, the unfavorable pattern was showing some signs of breakdown by the week of the chase. While this was certainly good news, it was still a less than ideal pattern in which to chase storms. It looked as if moisture would be limited and the jet stream was too far north at least at the beginning of chase week. Be sure to read some of my blogs on the social site for the class linked below to gain some insight on how we arrived at our chase decisions.
SPC Forecasts for the Beginning of Chase Week!
But with only a few days left, the Storm Prediction Center finally started to project severe weather for the Great Plains! With new found hope, the first day of class met with some excitement. Bill Corcoran went over the basics of storm development and forecasting and quizzed the students on where the target should be our first day. On that subject, which would be the day we finally hit the road? Saturday was discussed but finally a “hard departure” of Sunday morning was set.
Meanwhile, I was busy collecting equipment and gear. A visit with Jim Sellars proved to be quite valuable; he was so open, friendly and willing to help the whole class. He was also quite generous, lending us HAM radio gear, power inverters, maps, you name it. Plus, he made sure we thought about the “gotchas” like “what happens is hail busts out a windshield?” or “you should probably have a roll of toilet paper in the van!”
I tested live streaming in the days before the chase began. I chose to use Livestream because it allowed other videos to be running in a play loop during non-streaming times. I wasn’t sure how streaming would work (so-so it turned out) but I wanted to be ready.
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!
This is a summary of what project Vortex 2 accomplished during their first year of operation. It was a very slow severe weather season in 2009, at least within the project’s time and space domain.
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