Ramblings of a Graduate Student

The armada spent last night in Grand Island (second night in a row) and decided at this morning’s conference call to target storms in eastern Nebraska.  This strategy was a bit risky as moisture was initially quite  limited in the region and was forecast to increase only after the better shear moved north east.  The armada headed east to Lincoln, NE by 2:00 PM and then to Council Bluffs, IA by 5:30 PM.  A couple of storms developed between 6 and 7 PM, south-southeast of Lincoln, NE and then moved to the east-northeast at around 25 kts.  The armada intercepted these storms on the Iowa side of the border, between Omaha and Nebraska City, NE.  While the armada had a relatively good deployment, the storms never amounted to much.

Tomorrow a decision will have to be made whether to go all out on the possibility of storms in this same general vicinity on Monday (and give up on chasing in the Texas panhandle on Tuesday), drive to the Texas panhandle for possible deployments on Tuesday (and give up on tomorrow in the NE/IA area), or have really long days both days and attempt to do both.  It should be an interesting teleconference tomorrow morning

Today was a non-operations day, but it wasn’t a down day.  The armada spent the day having meetings and mission reviews of previous days in an effort to improve things for future days.  I am not even with the armada, but I had roughly three and a half hours worth or meetings today.  I can only imagine what they had!

It appears that the armada will be operating tomorrow.  Hopefully things improve compared to the last three weeks.

Well the armada spent the night in Topeka, KS last night because the thought was that operations would be in northern MO into southern IA today.  However, when the armada awoke, the cold front was farther south than thought meaning any storms would most likely form in northern MO and then move quickly into the extremely hilly terrain of central MO, where the armada can’t collect very good data.  As a result armada decided to take a chance and chase storms in southern Nebraska…even though the low-level moisture was less in this region.

The armada arrived in Lincoln, NE before 2PM and decided they needed to keep going west.  They first headed toward York, then Grand Island, then Elm Creek in an attempt to get to the longitude of thunderstorm initiation.  Eventually they realized that storms would not develop near them and they would have to head toward Ainesworth, NE and intercept thunderstorms moving SE in the dry air.

This storm looked really good for a while on radar (in terms of reflectivity) but was extremely high based.  Furthermore, the storm was struggling to maintain a vertical updraft in a region of high shear.  All of this led to the thunderstorm briefly reaching severe criteria before dissipating…shortly after the armada got into position to intercept it.

The armada is presently heading toward tonight’s hotel.  Tomorrow appears to be a down day for the armada to do a review of previous operations.  The armada is anticipating returning to operations on Sunday.

The armada is heading north.  There is a slight chance that there will be operations in southern Iowa tomorrow, and then in central Kansas on Saturday.  The Storm Prediction Center is suggesting that Sunday and / or Monday might have a better chance for supercells in roughly the same area.  We shall see what happens.

The armada took the day off today.  After spending the night in Norman and then having a morning meeting at the National Weather Center to discuss logistical issues, the armada gave everyone a day to relax and rest.   The next meeting will be tomorrow at 9:15 to discuss where the armada will be heading.

Well, the streak of consecutive days without a watch has finally been broken!  The Storm Prediction Center issued a severe thunderstorm watch for north-central Texas and far south-central Oklahoma for this evening.  

The armada began the day in Childress, TX after their marathon run-around on Monday.  Originally the thought on today was that it wouldn’t be any better than the previous days, but that since it was clear we wouldn’t have much to do for the next few days they would take a shot at finding something today.  As the day wore on, it became more and more evident that while shear was extremely weak, there would be enough CAPE in the area in and around Dallas – Fort Worth that a strong updraft might still produce a severe report.  The armada headed over to Gainesville, TX and waited for storms to develop.  The first storm developed just west of Fort Worth and had a very intense updraft.  Unfortunately, due to the size of the armada, chasing a storm in the metroplex is not feasible so they waited for a new storm to develop to the north of the original storm.  This new storm never developed, so the armada decided to attempt to play the storm in the metroplex. 

While making this decision, the storm grew in size and then split.  The northern storm (known as a left split) was identically backwards to what a classic supercell thunderstorm would look like.  It moved W and NW instead of E and SE and had clockwise rotation instead of counter-clockwise rotation.  The armada raced (obeying speed limits) around the north side of the metroplex and intercepted the storm near Decatur, TX.  This storm had several attempts at producing tornadoes, but as far as we know none occurred.  It did, however, produce baseball sized hail in the city of Decatur!

While we didn’t “catch” a tornado today, we certainly did have a good deployment and saw a “real” thunderstorm.  Now, it appears we will be taking several days off so that we can do personnel switch for some of the vehicles, make repairs, and then head up north for possible deployments this weekend.

Well, the armada spent the night in Amarillo, Texas in preparation for yet another sub-marginal severe weather day.  The difference this time being they were in the southern portion of the domain and not the far northern / out of the  domain.

At the morning briefing it was decided to move to Clarendon, TX and recovene at 1PM.  The thinking was the better shear would be to the north and the better moisture to the south.  Ideally, a storm would form to the north, develop supercellular characteristics, and move south-southeast into the better moisture.  Unfortunately, this didn’t happen.  The original storm of the day developed just west of Childress, TX and the armada reluctantly dropped southeast and targeted this storm.  Shortly after doing so, the storm dissipated and was nothing more than a shower.  The armada was began looking for a new storm to target only to find they were equidistant from three new areas of convection that were all still sub-par.  One storm (near Elk City, OK) was already mature and moving southeast along an old outflow boundary.  Another storm was consolidating / developing near Canadian, TX and showed promise of being the next “real” storm.  The other storm was south and east of Lubbock, TX and it was unclear what would happen to this storm over the next several hours.

After a brief debate, the armada decided to target the storm near Elk City, OK and hi-tailed it in the direction.   Hopes were high as the armada blasted northeast toward this storm, only to have them dashed when the storm collapsed and dissipated as the armada got close.  The armada then quickly turned around and headed toward the Canadian, TX storm only to have those hopes dashed as this storm also collapsed as the armada got close.  By this time it was shortly after 8PM and the armada called it quits for the evening.

I have to admit, it was an impressive showing for the VORTEX II armada today.  Not many scientists can say they have “killed” three separate storms in a single day.  Does this make the VORTEX II project a fighter ace?