Day 158: A “Super” Supercell
The VORTEX 2 armada once again intercepted a tornado from a storm moving into, through, and then out of Goshen county, Wyoming. For those of you who don’t remember, this is the county where VORTEX 2 intercepted it’s first (and only) tornado of 2009. I don’t have all the details of the deployment because it was very late, and the armada is still traveling, but what I do know was the several members of the armada saw at least a brief touchdown on the east side of Scottsbluff, Nebraska. The Doppler On Wheels (DOW) trucks were able to collect data on the tornado, and actually saw what appears to have been an additional tornado. Granted, no one “saw” this tornado, we’re just inferring it’s presence from the radar data. Hopefully I’ll have more information in the next few days.
As exciting as this intercept was, the image tonight is of a storm just east of the storm(s) the armada targeted. The above radar image was taken shortly before 10 PM CDT (03 UTC) and clearly shows a very strong supercell thunderstorm (complete with “hook”) beginning to wrap up. It’s a shame this storm didn’t develop earlier in the evening (before dark) so that VORTEX 2 could have targeted it. I can only imagine the dataset a storm like this would provide! Oh well. There is always tomorrow…
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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