Day 139: Another Oklahoma High Risk

Posted by pmarsh on 19 May 2010 | 1 comment

Today was day 19 of VORTEX II, and Mother Nature afforded V2 a second chance. The blog post for day 130 discussed the events of 10 May 2010 and how storm motions prevented VORTEX II from achieving a successful deployment. Today’s high risk offered slower storms, and a better potential for deployment on a tornadic thunderstorm.

The armada spent several hours collecting data on yet another thunderstorm that ultimately produced a tornado. This means that the first 19 days of V2 this year have been significantly better than the entire first year of V2.

While V2 was collecting data on a tornadic thunderstorm northwest of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, the VORTEX II Operations Center (located in the National Weather Center in Norman, OK) once again was forced to seek shelter from a potential tornado. Unlike 10 May, no tornado has been confirmed in the city of Norman.

These thunderstorms continued to slowly move east at the same time new thunderstorms developed over eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. The image below captures a view from the Fort Smith, AR National Weather Service radar of all the thunderstorms in the vicinity. There is nothing like being sandwiched between two sets of very intense thunderstorms!

Also, if you have been a reader of this blog for any length of time, you might have noticed that the quality/scientific content of the posts has been a lower lately than you might have become accustomed to. I apologize for that – you can blame VORTEX II. Hopefully in the next day or two I can get some rest and begin thinking clearly again!