VORTEX 2: DAY 8
Still down.
The armada is having a “mission review” tonight to discuss the happenings of the previous three missions. Unfortunately, since I’m not with the armada I’m unable to report on the review. Instead, I continued working on my summer to-do list. Today’s mission was to finish rearranging my office at home and wash / clean the cars. Mission accomplished on both! 
Tomorrow looks to be down as well, however things might pick up on Tuesday. More on that tomorrow.
VORTEX 2: Day 7
The armada spent the night in Enid, OK after yesterday’s squall line deployment. Today, a down day, was spent traveling to the central portion of tornado alley where the armada will run practice drills over the next few days in preparation for deployment late in the week.
Since today was a down day, I spent the day working on things around the duplex that I was planning on putting off until the end of the summer. It was nice to “get away” from VORTEX II and get these things done. Tomorrow looks to be a down day as well so hopefully I’ll cross a few more things off my to-do list!
VORTEX 2: Day 6
Yesterday was a travel day for the armada as they headed north from Yukon, OK to Wichita, KS. The thinking was that since severe thunderstorms would be possible anywhere from the Texas panhandle northeast through northern Missouri, staying in Wichita would provide the best opportunity to cover the entire risk area. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t show her hand this morning and provided us with a difficult forecast. The armada’s choices were
- Head northeast toward Emporia, KS / Kansas City, MO where there were better winds in the middle portion of the atmosphere and the possiblity of an outflow boundary from morning convection (which VORTEX I found can aid tornado development).
- Stay in Wichita until late in the day and hope something develops nearby.
- Head west toward SW KS / NW OK / northern OK & TX panhandles. This area might have a brief opportunity for decent mid-level winds, east or southeast surface winds, and discrete storms.
The initial consensus was to head northeast toward Kansas City, however a few people (myself included) thought it would be better to go west toward the Texas panhandle. Becuase of this, the armada decided to wait until 11AM to make a decisions, which is a delay of about an hour.
At 11AM the decision was made to head to Enid, OK, which is southwest of Wichita, but in the same general vicinity. The armada convened in Enid around 2PM and then waited for thunderstorms to develop – which happened around 4PM in Kansas. Additionally, an isolated supercell thunderstorm developed in the NE TX panhandle, where the cold front and dryline intersected. (This thunderstorm went on to produce several brief, weak tornadoes.)
The thunderstorms in Kansas were developing southwest along the cold front and so the armada spent most of the afternoon waiting for the thunderstorms to come to them. While they were waiting, the storm in the TX panhandle occurred and additional tornado warnings were issued for the Wichita, KS vicinity. (Ironic, I know!) By the time the thunderstorms reached the armada they were “gusting out” meaning that the rain cooled air was pushing out ahead of the storm, robbing it of the warm, moist air needed to sustain itself. Along the leading edge of this gust front, things that resemble tornadoes often develop. These are not true tornadoes (which occur with updrafts), but rather “gustnadoes” (because they occur on the leading edge of the downdraft, which is known as the gust front). One of these gustnado-like structures developed very near one of the mobile mesonets, which reported a brief funnel cloud. However it never came in contact with the ground and was never really a serious threat.
All in all, today was a good day in terms of learning. The armada was able to deploy and collect coordinated data, even though it wasn’t exciting. (The next step will be to collect coordinated data on an exciting storm!) The armada called it quits after the storms passed them and headed to their hotels. Tomorrow, through at least the first part of the week looks to be “down” days because of the strong high pressure building over the central portion of the US. This will limit severe weather chances for the forseeable future. However, the armada is not taking it easy. Tomorrow they will head to a new portion of the central plains and do “practice” for the next several days, in hopes that they become a well oiled machine for what appears like operations in South Dakota or North Dakota around mid-week.
VORTEX 2: Days 4 and 5
So much for me being able to do this during the morning. I guess I’ll just combine posts for the past two days.
Wednesday (Day 4) the armada began the day in Childress, TX with a 9AM conference call to discuss the day before and talk about a forecast for operations that day. This was a particularly difficult forecast because the better ingredients for tornado development were in northern Missouri, in an area where the armada is not supposed to operate, while in Oklahoma (where the armada can operate) the chance of tornadic storms was considerably less. During this call it was decided that the armada would reposition in Clintion, OK by 2PM in anticipation that thunderstorms would develop southwestward into northern Oklahoma along an advancing cold front. The thought was there might be a chance of collecting data on a storm as it developed, before it “gusted out” and died.
Late in the afternoon, the armada (or, as I’ve heard it called, the “nerd herd”) the field coordinator (FC) decided to move farther north, closer to the advancing boundary. It was decided to move to Watonga, OK and reevaluate the conditions. About the time the armada arrived in the Watonga area, the first thunderstorms began developing in Kay county, OK along the Oklahoma-Kansas border. (It should be noted that this storm went on to produce a very “nice” tornado, in relative open space, that was captured by several news station’s helicopters.) The armada decided to wait for and play the developing thunderstorms north of them in hopes that this storm on the west end of the cold front would have the best chance to produce tornadoes. After a few failed attempts to develop into a thunderstorm, convection finally initiated near Fairview, OK. The armada targeted this storm and attempted to set up a network to collect data. Unfortunately, this storm would begin to move to the northeast and then develop a new storm to its southwest. This new cell on the southwest would then get ingested into the original storm and it appeared as if the initial thunderstorm moved south. This kind of movement (discrete propagation) is indicative of a very strong instability and would normally be a good thing if you are trying to collect data on tornadoes. However, an overal storm system motion of “south” is extremely difficult to collect data on because the instruments would need to be west of the storm. The means that the mobile radars would have to try and collect data on any possible tornado by shooting “through” the back side of the storm where heavy rain and hail is falling. Do this will severe affect the electromagnetic wave and prevent the wave from making it back to the radar. In a nutshell, this means that you can’t collect any mobile radar data…which is a big portion of this project.
Well, after the radars made an attempt to collect data, the storm motion forced them to have to get south. Unfortunately, the nearest road option would have taken them into the storm, where falling hail would destroy the $400,000 radars. This forced most of the radars to head east before being able to head south and at this point the game was essentially over. The radars were never able to get far enough ahead of the storm to collect really good data and were continually being chased by the storm. (Ironic, I know!) Around 8:45 operations were officially called off for the evening as it was dark and the armada’s safety plan does not allow for operations in the dark. The armada then headed to Yukon, OK for the night. Ironically, within 30 minutes of calling off operations, the thunderstorm the armada deployed on produced a 12 mile long EF2 tornado that went from Gracemont, OK through Anadarko, OK. Go figure!
This morning at the 9AM conference call it was decided that severe thunderstorms were not likely across the central United States and no operations would be conducted. Instead the nerd herd headed toward tomorrow’s target, and as of last check, is resting comfortably in their hotel rooms. We’ll see what tomorrow holds…
Tornado Warning!
Sorry, there won’t be a VORTEX II update tonight. The armada chased some interesting storms today and the VORTEX II Operations Center has been under a tornado warning for the past hour or so. I’ll do a formal debrief tomorrow morning and give the account of what happened!
Even though I’m here looking out for the armada, the storms are chasing me!
VORTEX 2: Day 3
Well today was the first day of real operations. The armada spent the night in Clinton, OK in preparation of a chase today in either SW Kansas or the southern TX panhandle. During our 9AM conference call, we decided that the chance of severe thunderstorms developing in SW Kansas was pretty slim (due to a strong cap, or warm air aloft). Thus, we targest an area NE of Lubbock, TX and SW of Childress, TX. A big concern we had was a lack of shear (change of wind speed and direction with height) which would tend to cause thunderstorms to be “multi-cellular” and not the “supercell” storms that produce the majority of tornadoes. However, after two days of not seeing anything, the armada decided to at least go see a thunderstorm.
The armada departed Clinton, OK around 10:30 AM with an initial target of Shamrock, TX, when an update would be provided. Stopping there would give the armada a chance to head south, if needed, or continue on toward Amarillo where they could take the interstate to Lubbock. On the way to Shamrock, the FC (field coordinator) made the call to head on to Amarillo and then head south via I27. The armada arrived in Tulia, TX by early afternoon, where they spent most of the afternoon waiting for the atmosphere to decide what it wanted to do. (Note, the Texas Tech group actually played a game of whiffle ball to pass the time!)
Thunderstorms began developing to the west of Lubbock around 4PM in a region of very dry low-level air. This is bad for tornadoes. Tornadoes need warm, moist air at the surface because this air is unstable and wants to rise. A tornado, afterall, is nothing but a rapidly, rotating column of rising air extending out of a thunderstorm. Additionally, similar to how sweating when you are outside is designed to keep you cool, rain falling into dry air causes the temperature to fall. This rain cooled air then accelerates away from the thunderstorm causing the thunderstorm to become “elevated” above the cool air and reduces the chance of tornadoes. Well the first storm that developed did just this. It quickly became elevated and “gusted out”.
To the southeast of this initial storm (east, northeast of Lubbock) a cluster of new thunderstorms developed in an area of slightly better moisture. The armada was faced with a very tough decision: Go after the elevated, but better looking storm to the north, or take a chance on the weaker storm in a region of slightly better moisture. The armada waited as long as they could to make a decision…even moving east from Tulia to Silverton, TX…but ultimately waited a little too long. They tried to head north to the initially better looking storm, only to get hit with the cold air coming out from this storm. Meanwhile, the storm to the southeast began to look a lot better. The armada then tried to catch back up to the eastern storm, but essentially was playing catch up the entire time. In fact, in addition to playing catch up, the armada spent a considerable amount of time dodging storms that were developing all around them that began producing hail. I should also mention that our communication systems do not work very well in this part of the country. Cell phones were having a hard time keeping signal, and the canyons made it difficult for our line-of-sight radio signals to make it to the appropriate personnel.
Eventually the armada made it to the city where they were spending the night (have to read tomorrow to find out where!) and decided that even though a nearby storm was looking “interesting” they would end operations for the night due to everyone being exhausted from a long day and night was falling.
Here in the VOC, we spent most of the day preparing forecasts for today’s operations and planning for tomorrow’s operation. It appears now that the armada will be operating somewhere in western Oklahoma in hopes that a storm can develop along the southern edge of what is feared to be a pretty strong squall line. Model forecast fields indicate the presence of extreme instability in Oklahoma, so very large hail will be a very big concern. Depending on the evolution of tonight’s thunderstorms, there might be a small tornado risk in this area as well.
We’ll see what happens!
VORTEX 2: Day 2
Well, the slim chance for severe thunderstorms didn’t happen (which is what we thought). The armada, however, did decide to leave Norman and head west in preparation for a chance of severe storms tomorrow. They are currently staying in Custer county, Oklahoma. This place was chosen because there are two areas tomorrow the armada might try and target. One area is to the north, where there is better wind shear (change of wind speed and direction with height; which is good for severe thunderstorm development) but there is a lot of warm air above the surface that will act to suppress thunderstorm development during the day. The other area is to the south where the warm air aloft is not quite as warm, but the wind shear is considerably weaker. Since we won’t know more until tomorrow, we split the difference.
In other news, the project is only 2 days old but we already had to make repairs to 2 vehicles. While driving around Norman today, two mobile mesonets (big vans with instruments on the roof) had their instruments damaged. No, they weren’t in an accident, and, no, there wasn’t vandelism. However, Norman has a lot of places where tree limbs hang over the road and two of these tree branches ripped the anemometers off the roof of the mobile mesonets. I’m sure the armada is happy to be out west where there are fewer trees to worry about!
About Patrick
Patrick Marsh is a Ph.D. student at the University of Oklahoma's School of Meteorology. He earned a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and Physics (cum laude) from the University of Arkansas in 2005 and a Masters of Science in Meteorology in 2007. In addition to working on his doctorate, Patrick serves as the National Severe Storms Laboratory Liaison to the Hazardous Weather Testbed where his research interests lie in working with operational forecasters, data mining, data visualization, and all things high-impact weather. For more about Patrick's work, check out his complete CV!
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