VORTEX II: 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…
