Hi everyone! I haven't had the chance to write a blog yet, but here I am finally! I am Sarah Dillingham, a second year Masters student at Texas Tech University. I will be graduating in Fall 2010 with my Masters in Atmospheric Science, and will continue my new job as a broadcast meteorologist for a local station here in Lubbock. I've had a passion for weather my entire life, and I am so excited to be living my dream and doing severe storms research. My meteorological career started at the University of Georgia, where I earned a B.S. in Geography and Atmospheric Science and I have learned a great deal over the past 8 years I've been in college! VORTEX2 is one of the greatest things I may ever have the chance to be apart of, and I hope that our work with the TTU Teams will continue to help further the science.

As I'm sure you've already read from Tanya's blog, Mother Nature is still not ready to give up her secrets for at least a couple more days. With the only viable targets for today and tomorrow being marginal, at best, the powers that be of V2 have decided to forgo operations for today. However, we will be departing tomorrow for sure to begin our now 6 1/2 week journey through the Plains. I'm sure many of you are aware of the GPS issues a few of our teams are facing now, but those new instruments should be coming in on Tuesday morning. I am electing to stay behind and get them, if Dr. Weiss approves :) because I am still working on a proposal for one of my classes. Yes, that's right. I still have some classes that are not yet concluded, so I will not truly be able to enjoy myself for another couple of days......but oh well. I'm just really ready to get out of town, and VORTEX2 is a great way to do that....obviously. This has been a long and difficult semester, and I NEED A VACATION! Haha! Even though I will be doing quite a bit of physical labor during the project, it's a different kind of stress and a version of it that I can handle :) I will be a deployer with StickNet Team 2 this year, and our team will be responsible for deploying the fine scale arrays of instruments, up-close and personal with the supercells! I'm a bit nervous in this particular position as I will be working with one of the veterans of the TTU team, Ph.D. candidate Brian Hirth. Hopefully I'll be fast enough...... ;)

Like many other participants in our group, this will be my last field research project. I am really looking forward to this project again because I learned SO much last year and am anxious to see what the weather has in store for us this season. As we are beginning to transition out of El Nino, we may have an interesting project ahead of us. But only time will tell. Either way, let's hope that if and when the weather gods decide to release their fury again, our teams will all be there to capture it and collect some valuable data. My heart goes out to those who have already been affected by the events over the past two weeks, and hopefully our research will teach us more about tornadoes and other related severe weather events. While we will not be able to stop how the atmosphere behaves, we can surely help you and your families keep yourselves as safe as possible, should you ever be affected by any events.

I guess that's all I have for my first post, but now I guess I better get back to that proposal..... ;) Talk to you all again soon!

Sarah