Gnarly Deployment

After rejuvenating in Lubbock and fixing instrument issues from the night before, the team was primed and ready to hit the road (05/17/2010). The morning started out with sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. One could not imagine that such a gorgeous day could produce the weather that ensued later in the afternoon.

From Reese Technology Center we departed for Muleshoe, TX to post up and get word on our target location for the day. The rest of the armada had stayed in Clovis, NM for the evening and had no plans of meeting up with us in Muleshoe. Upon arriving in Muleshoe, we were informed that we had plenty of time to kill so one of our very own recommended that we stop at a Mexican restaurant named Leal's. Most opted out of the recommendation but a group of us decided to indulge and we were not disappointed. The cuisine was delectable and I highly recommend anyone to stop by Leal's if you are passing through Muleshoe, TX.

After lunch, our target location became Vega, TX which lies west of Amarillo, TX on I-40. We did not post up in Vega long before hedging further north to Channing, TX where the entire armada parked on the side of the road. It was quite the scene watching the entire armada traverse the road together. In Channing, local and non-locals came out to investigate why we were located in their town. We embrace these interactions with locals and non-locals because it gives us the opportunity to inform them about the purpose of the our research and give them a little heads-up about the impending weather situation for the area.

After sitting in Channing for about 40 minutes, a supercelluar thunderstorm began to percolate and operations commenced! My team (StickNet 4) was instructed to bust north and east towards Dumas, TX and head north of out Dumas until further instructed. Once we arrived at our target latitude north of Dumas, we were mandated to begin deploying southward with 3 mile spacing in accordance with StickNet 2. We are always tethered to StickNet 2. They have an AED and are pretty much our lifeline when in distress.

Fortunately for Tanya and I, we did not have to take on any dangerous lightning or hail. We remained dry throughout our entire deployment. The only real challenge that we faced was determining where to deploy our StickNet probes because we try to avoid power lines and buildings that obstruct wind flow or pose as threats to our instruments. Thus, we decided to deploy in the medians.

Given that we were deploying with 3 mile spacing, we had to be mindful of StickNet 2 and their deployments because we did not want to deploy on top of them. They were instructed to deploy with 1 mile spacing and so keeping good communication was vital. Ultimately, we decided to withhold deploying our last two probes until ripping through Dumas. On the south side of town, we proceeded to drop our last two probes and then we turned around and watched our beast of a storm pass over our array. We could not have deployed any better than we did! It was a textbook operation.

Parked a few miles south of town, we watched a massive wall cloud pass through town and the inflow into the storm was incredible! Even more interesting was the exponential increase of traffic density around us. One man said that he had rushed to grab his 81 yr. old mother before the tornado reached town to get her to safety. Another couple had been traveling from South Carolina and had never been to Texas or seen a tornado before so they were flabbergasted. On the whole, it seemed that most people south of town would not dare enter town with the ominous storm approaching Dumas.

What caught my attention the most on this day besides the weather situation was a particular chaser who decided to impersonate civil service vehicles. This chaser thought that using a siren to weave through dense traffic is appropriate...THIS IS ILLEGAL! These types of chasers continue to give responsible storm chasers a negative reputation. We use rotating lights on top of our vehicles for safety purposes but we do not expect people to pull over for us nor do we try to impersonate any civil service personnel. Moreover, this reckless act clearly defines the difference between chasing and researching.

On the whole, the data set collected from yesterday's storm was probably the second best data set collected between the two phases of VORTEX2. I am sure Pat Skinner will be able to talk more about what was discovered during the radar deployments on this storm, but one of our probes (0221) recorded a max wind speed of 35.8 m/s which is roughly 80 mph. We are quite excited about this data set and are striving to collect even more research grade data sets.

Until next time..............

A Hilton, home, a new friend, some aliens, we do it all!

It been another week packed with action for the V2 teams. We have officially passed the 1/3 mark of the project, and have already deployed almost as many StickNets in the past two weeks as we did for the entire season last year. That means that we're getting a lot of data, but unfortunately, many people have suffered because of the active weather season.

Since you last heard from us, we left Oklahoma, returned to Texas, operated in New Mexico, had a few nights at home, did some more operating in New Mexico. I'll try to summarize some of our outings.....after our travel day to Midland on Thursday, we operated southwest of Midland along the I-20 corridor on Friday. This was a particularly challenging day, as storm initiation began rather early in the day, and many updrafts popped up in the area. Our team saw at least one tornado to the west of Odessa, and may have seen a second, but we were not close enough to tell it if actually made contact with the ground, so we won't count it. The StickNet teams made a full deployment of probes and Ka-1 was also operating nearby. The tornado was not on the ground as it passed through the StickNet array, but funnels were spotted in the near vicinity and directly overhead.

On Saturday, we operated north of Carlsbad, NM. The supercell was a good-looking storm, coming off the higher terrain. The teams deployed on two seperate roads north of Artesia. But as the storm approached, it began dying right before our eyes, evaporating the base away. My team actually made a new friend, a friendly little dog who wondered over to investigate us. She hung around with us for about 30 minutes as we waited for further instructions. She was very nice, but seemed scared at first. I was so worried about her being next to the road, but she would follow me off of it after a while. I felt terrible leaving her there, and was wishing we were closer to home and our friend Simon, who rescues stray dogs. I would have taken her to him. At the end of the night, we treked back to Midland for the third night in a row. Which, by the way, if you're ever in Midland, the downtown Hilton is pretty nice, and they were super-accommodating for us, renting an extra parking lot across the street so we could park all the big vehicles, and made everything easy for us.

On Sunday morning, we got the word that we were going home! It was decided that it would be a travel day to Lubbock for the armada, so we bolted! We made it home around 1:00, but we had some work to do before parting ways. We washed all four trucks, both trailers, and one radar. At the same time, we had a group of people inside working on the probes, repairing connectors, loose plugs, and had Ian building a new tripod to bring 215A back to life. Half the group headed home around 3:30, and the rest followed about 2 hours later. I was responsible for running some V2 errands after dropping my laundry off at home. I took, a trailer tire to Firestone to get repaired, which unfortunately it couldn't be because we had a screw in it too close to the edge. And, because it was Sunday, they couldn't get a replacement tire for it from the warehouse until Monday, and not in time for us to get it replaced, so lucky we have a few more spares. I also had to pick up some new Texas maps for my truck and our FC truck. At home, I mowed the lawn, helped with the laundry, then met some fellow V2-ers for dinner at a hibachi grill, and then down to Broadway.

Monday, oddly enough, brought us back to New Mexico! We began by treking to Tatum, then pushed further west to Caprock, then even further so to Roswell. Roswell, if you don't know, is like the UFO/alien capital of the country. We passed the museum and many shops selling alien gear. My team was stationed on the south end of Roswell, positioned to deploy probes to the south, SN2 was stationed north of town positioned to deploy to the north. FC and SN3 moved further south, and it was almost unbelievable to watch.....they deployed on exactly the same road, and exactly the same spot as they did on Saturday. This was an incredibly tough operations day, as the majority of the armada, including our FC vehicle had little or no communications for over an hour. They had no internet, no cell phone coverage, and limited radio contact. They were unable to communicate with my team and SN2, so we remained up by Roswell for the entire event, and didn't make any deployments, but the southern two teams got a few probes in. This storm gave a hard hit to the V2 armada, as many people found themselves in ping pong and golfball sized hail. Our vehicles were undamaged, but reports indicate that 10-15 teams lost windshields yesterday. Hail is a walking advertisement for StickNets.....you don't have to sit there and get pulverized by hail to collect valuable data, and we were fortunate to have escaped with no damage.

After yesterday's event, we made the 3 hour trek back to Lubbock, while the rest of the armada hoteled further north. When we got back to our Reese facility, we had more insturments to fix, and realized that yet another Vaisala all-in-one probe was beginning to fail. It did not report any wind data, only themodynamic data. We've just about had it with these instruments. We've replaced all of them at least once, and have made many modifications to them to make them better, but they still fail. When the first group of them began failing, Vaisala claimed it was likely due to water intrusion, so we made seals and rings and used grease to make them more water tight. Strangely enough, in their next edition of the instrument, Vaisala had used many of our fixes. Again, this is a weather instrument, so how can it not work in weather?! These are meant to be placed outside, and outside gets storms! Argggg...we have shipped back the three that we have replacede in the last two weeks, so we're hopeful that they will replace them and we can pick them up on our next trip to Lubbock, whenever that may be......

We're back on the road this morning, looking to operate further to the north. If you live in the panhandle areas, make sure you're paying attention over the next few days. We'll be active....which means the weather could be severe. We're out there really trying to make a difference.

Electricity

Hi everyone! I'm sure by you've seen that VORTEX 2 has been incredibly active over the last several days. Its been a lot of long days, late nights, little sleep, no laundry, and endless fast food. I'll be honest, after the schedule we've had this week, I was so relieved when the leaders ceased operations by 5 pm last night. For only the second time this week, I made it to bed before 1 am.

Pat did a good job of summarizing our deployments over the last several days. We were incredibly active and got some good datasets on tornadic storms. And Rich has described some of the challenges and dangers of our field work. I think my mom, and probably other moms of project participants are scared of us getting blown away by a tornado. In all honesty, this is one of my lesser fears. The StickNet teams (especially the trailer teams, of which I am a member of), usually make deployments well in advance of a potential tornado, and have retreated to safety before one is even close to crossing our StickNet array. That's not to say that we're not keeping an eye out and working quickly. But my two biggest fears are traffic and lightning.

The V2 armada features something like 40 research vehicles (and that doesn't include all the media and extra vehicles that are generally with us). Add in the endless number of chasers and curious locals, and there are often over 100 vehicles on the main road, and since we will not travel down dirt roads, that means we're usually making deployments on this "main road." As a driver of one of the larger and least manueverable vehicles of the group, driving through this is nerve-racking and I'm trying to always be conscious of other people's actions (unexpected turns, changes in speed, pulling over). And I'm praying that they're looking out for me too, as I have to jump out of said vehicle and race to the back of the trailer for probe deployments.

So traffic is a problem, but lightning is even more frightening. Its so deadly and you never know when or where its going to strike. During deployments on Wednesday near the city of Sayre, OK, I called off a deployment because I felt that Rich and I would no longer be safe outside of the vehicle because of the high frequency and close proximity of lightning strikes. About 30 seconds later, our leader Chris Weiss was calling me and telling me to drop further south. What a difference those miles made. Once we retreated further south, the lightning was not nearly as active, and the threat of the approaching hail core was also diminished. After retreating several miles, we were able to safely begin our deployments again. And one of our probes was deployed within a few hundred yards of an FCMP (Florida Coastal Monitoring Project) disdrometer probe, and a CSWR (Center for Severe Weather Research) tornado pod. The mobile mesonet vehicles were also active on this road, and I saw several radars scanning as well, so a good, coordinated deployment was pulled off once again.

Despite the wild ride that night, all edition 2 probes (the probes that come out of my trailer) functioned fully, and there were just minor issues with the probes (connectors and switches to tighten). Trailer 1 had a Vaisala all-in-one sensor fail (for some reason these seem to fail frequently in heavy rain....its amazing to me that a weather instrument can't take some weather!!! What are these things supposed to be used for anyway!), but thanks to Brian and Ian, the sensor was replaced and the probe is operational again. By about 1 am on Thursday morning, we were ready for the next day's deployments.

Well, its about that time, to begin loading the luggage and getting the trucks ready for departure, to get back after it today. We'll let you know what we find....

Mmmmmmmm Donuts

A big hello to all 19 of our followers and anyone else who may be reading this! So, it's been a long three days since my last post and an awful lot has happened, I'll try to catch everyone up.

I'll start with the most exciting news for our TTUKa teams. We managed to scan a developing tornado just southwest of Clinton, OK last night around sunset. The image above shows the reflectivity image of the tornado as observed by TTUKa-1, it is the "donut" in the lower-left portion of the image. We were at a range of about 18 km to the tornado, which is quite a ways farther than we'd like to be, but it's exciting that we were still able to capture structure this detailed at long range. Also, and from our perspective this is as exciting as the tornado, we captured several RHI (range-height indicator) scans (which look at the vertical structure of the storm rather than the horizontal) across the rear-flank downdraft boundary of the Clinton supercell prior to tornadogenesis. These scans revealed horizontal circulations in the strong convergence at the interface of the downdraft and storm inflow. A series of these circulations propagated vertically within the upraft and the level of detail captured has us all very excited! (Hopefully I can get a screen capture or two of these up in a future posting, I don't think I have done them justice with my description)

Our Tuesday deployment was pretty hectic as storm motion didn't cooperate with our forecast (it hasn't yet this year, so we're getting better at adapting) and we didn't get on the storm until nearly sunset. Still, we were able to capture the first-ever coordinated Ka-band dual-Doppler dataset with our sister radar TTUKa-2! Now, next time we collect dual-Doppler data with the TTUKa's, we'd like to be scanning a non-elevated supercell, preferably tornadic (in open country), and at an elevation angle less than 5 degrees. But still, it's a start.

As Rich has described below, Monday was a tough and sobering day for most of the V2 participants and our thoughts remain with the families effected by the tornadoes in Oklahoma. Driving through the tornado damage north of Seminole was a poignant reminder of why we do what we do. Hopefully we will do it well enough to make a difference in a few lives effected by tornadoes in the future.

Operationally, Monday was as difficult as it gets. Low visibility due to both terrain and low clouds coupled with very fast storm motion and backbuilding storms all combined to make for very challenging and dangerous deployment conditions. The whole V2 armada performed admirably under the conditions and we were fortunate to collect some good data on the Norman/Tecumpseh/Seminole tornado. The radars got a couple of deployments in, but terrain and precipitation-filled RFDs prevented any scans of the tornado from being obtained.

It's looking like operations are unlikely today in a region roughly bounded by Siberia, the central Indian Ocean, Patagonia, and the Aleutian Islands, but we'll probably be back to work tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes!

p.s. Way to busy to bird the last few days, but I have managed to run the project total up to 39 species, including a Dick Cissel while scouting locations near Stillwater, OK.

Back-To-Back Deployments

Hello Fellow Followers,

I have finally managed to get around to blogging. My name is Rich Krupar and I am still in the process of finishing my first year of graduate school at Texas Tech University. Before leaving for VORTEX2, I had to re-schedule a statistics final exam that I must take when I return from the field project. Let me tell you, this is a royal pain! There was so much paper work involved to get the incomplete approved. Signatures from the dean of the math department and the graduate school were required and a contract was established between my professor and I. Nonetheless, I managed to get everything sorted out and now the honus is now on me to prepare for the exam. No sweat right? I mean, I get more time than anyone else in the course to prepare for the exam so I should ace it in theory. Theory is always susceptible to change.

A lot has been going on since our first deployment on May 10th, 2010 and today warrants a discussion of the events that have unfolded. As most of you are aware, May 10th, 2010 was a very scary day for residents in Oklahoma. Rapid storm motion of 50-60 mph and vigorous tornadoes wreaked havoc in many parts of Oklahoma including Norman and Seminole. This was a challenging day for our teams because we could barely keep up with the storms and make pertinent deployments of our StickNet probes. It was my first time deploying in a storm environment and it sure was challenging. My teammate Tanya and I worked efficiently enough to get two probes down but could not manage to deploy anymore because of extensive foliage and dangerous storm motion. In an attempt to catch a tornadic storm south near Seminole, OK, my team made a maneuver south but was alerted quickly by our Field Coordinator (FC) that the situation was too dangerous for us to pursue. We followed orders and made our way south once the tornadic storm passed. To our surprise, we saw the damage that Seminole had experienced. Damage to family residences and mobile homes was evident, along with snapped trees and downed power lines. Pictures are to follow but we as a group would like to provide a disclaimer about our photos: damage photos were taken for research purposes and we in no manner meant to offend those who were traumatized by the loss of property. We are striving to make scientific leaps in our respective field and we want to save as many lives as we can. We are not storm chasing...we are advancing our scientific knowledge.

This was the first time I have seen tornado damage in person following a tornado event and it was quite a humbly experience. If there ever was a lack of motivation to execute the purpose of our project, the Seminole event provide even more impetus to advance lead times on tornado warnings and further our knowledge about tornadogenesis (the beginning stage of tornadoes). Our hearts and prayers go out to those who were affected by the tumultuous weather.

That same night, our group lodged in Shawnee, OK where the we had no power at our hotel because of the severe weather. We had to use flashlights and candles to make it up the stairs to our rooms and showers were lukewarm at best. Despite the lack of power, we were thankful to have a roof over our heads for the night. Local residents impacted by the day's events were lodging with us because they could not remain in their damaged residences. May 10th, on the whole, lended light on how precious life is and how we all should not take it for granted or underestimate the power of mother nature.

May 11th, 2010 provided us with another day of research in western Oklahoma. We managed to lay down our entire array of StickNets but the target storm of interest never seemed to turn right enough to make contact with our probes. I felt a lot more comfortable deploying this time around and it seemed like Tanya and I had acquired a great line of communication that allowed us to deploy rapidly.

As dangerous as deployments can be, pickup can be just as dangerous, if not more dangerous. The night sky obstructs our view, making it difficult to retrieve the probes. We heavily rely on the map markings that our navigator makes on our DeLorme map software to estimate our pickup location. Oncoming traffic also poses another threat to life as we pick up our probes. Extreme caution is exercised always during both deployment and retrieval.

With many weeks left in the project, I am confident that more deployments will take place and more interesting stories will be told. Stay tuned...

Home Sweet Home!

A big hello to all 16 of our followers and anyone else who is reading this! TTUKa-1 (the better-looking radar in the picture above) is back on the road after an unexpected, but welcome trip back to Lubbock. With operations down for Friday and Saturday and the rest of the V2 armada staying in Amarillo, the TTU teams opted out of the hotel to get a couple of nights in our own beds. The break also coincided with a celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Texas Tech Wind Science and Engineering Department, so we were thrilled to be able to make it back for the party and show off all of our instrumentation for the alumni in town for the event.

Prior to the brief trip home, we did get to deploy for the first time in 2010 on an elevated supercell in northwestern Kansas last Thursday. The supercell did not offer much for satisfying research objectives as there was virtually zero chance of it becoming tornadic, but it did offer a great, low-stress deployment to shake off the rust from last season. It was especially nice to get a chance to attempt a coordinated deployment with TTUKa1 and TTUKa2 before we're out on the real deal (which starts tomorrow) to iron out any communications problems.

So, between the "practice" deployment last Thursday and the weekend at home, the TTU teams are well rested, ready, and eager for some tornadic supercells in unpopulated areas to collect data on. And it looks like Mother Nature will oblige us. A deep trough in the southwestern U.S. looks likely to create a severe weather outbreak tomorrow somewhere in central North America, and opportunities for V2 deployments will likely persist through at least Wednesday. So the next time I blog, hopefully I'll have multiple successful deployments to discuss!

Finally, I'm reasonably sure this is of interest to around 0% of you, but it's my blog so I'm including it anyways. One of the challenges of severe thunderstorm field work is finding hobbies to occupy long hours of down time on the road. Over the years, this has led to me becoming a fairly avid birdwatcher. So I'll be using the final paragraph of my postings to update you, the readers, on my progress towards seeing 75 species of bird over the course of V2. Currently, I've picked off most of the likely roadside bird suspects while driving, and have 32 species seen. I'll have to find some opportunities to bird in some better habitat (and not while moving 70 mph) in the upcoming weeks if I'm going to reach the goal.

StickNets

Since it doesn't seem likely that we will be doing any operating today, I thought I would take some time to explain some of our instrumentation. Chris has already mentioned that the Texas Tech suite of instruments includes 24 StickNet probes and 2 Ka-band mobile radars. I'll describe the StickNets in a little more detail, and describe our typical operations plan for deploying them. I'll leave the Ka radar descriptions for Pat....

As Chris mentioned, the StickNets are a rapidly deployable surface observing platform. They all feature two primary parts--an extendable tripod (like the kind surveyors use) and a data aquisition (DAQ) box. All StickNets measure wind speed and direction, temperature, relative humidity, and pressure. They all feature a flux-gate compass so that we don't have to worry about orienting them towards a particular direction when we make the deployments. Beyond that, there are some differences. We have two instrument configurations. The first, called an "A" probe features a standard propeller anemometer to capture the wind data, which is mounted on the top of the tripod, a temp/RH sensor (instrument that measures, you guessed it, temperature and relative humidity) that is mounted on the DAQ box, and a barometric pressure sensor located inside the DAQ box. The second configuration, called the "B" probes features an "all-in-one" sensor, meaning that wind speed and direction, temperature, and relative humidity are all collected by one sensor. In additon this sensor can measure precipitation type (hail vs. rain) and can estimate the quantity. This sensor is mounted on the top of the tripod.

It takes 2 people 2 minutes or less to deploy a StickNet. I'll give you a play-by-play of a deployment in my vehicle.....when we pull up to a deployment site, my partner (fellow blogger Rich) and I jump out of the truck and race back to the trailer. After opening the trailer and securing the doors, I will hop in and unhook a tripod. I will jump out of the trailer and head for the deployment site, calling out the probe number to Rich. He will grab the DAQ box, and run out to meet me. By the time he gets there, I have usually extended one of the three tripod legs, and he will set the DAQ box down and together we will work on the last two legs. Then we will take a moment to ensure the probe is level. Then he will lift the DAQ box into place, while I secure it with a pin. I will then power the probe on, hook up the two connectors to power the GPS and instrumentation and turn the data switch on. The software will run a series of tests and once the data light stops blinking, I know the instruments are ready to sample. While I am working on the hookup, Rich is responsible for driving a stake through each of the three tripod legs to secure the probe into position. We generally finish our tasks at roughly the same time, but whoever finishes first runs back to the trailer to close up the doors. We hop into the truck and drive off to the next deployment location. We also have a third member of our team who remains in the truck. He is responsible for keeping a log of all of the deployments, marking the time, GPS coordinates, any obstructions, and any notes that may come in handy. He can also monitor the radio traffic and internet chat to ensure we don't miss any important messages, and also acts as a spotter, keeping an eye on us as we deploy outside of the truck.

Seems like a lot, but yes, we can do it in under 2 minutes and by the end of the season when we've had a lot of practice, we can get much closer to the 1 minute mark!

Before we begin the deployments, Chris instructs us which road we will be using, and what spacing we should allow between the probes. We do our best to keep to the spacing he instructs, but sometimes towns, trees, buildings, etc., get in the way, so we do the best we can. My truck, pulling a trailer, handles one of the two coarse array deployments. Our probes are generally spaced 1-2 miles apart. As the storm gets closer to the deployment road, the non-trailered trucks (which are much more maneuverable) lay down a fine-scale array, centered near where they think a potential tornado or mesocyclone could cross the road.

I included a picture that Kristina Butler took of Brian Hirth and I doing a mock deployment during local media day. He is getting ready to move the DAQ box into place and I am standing by to secure it with the pin. Even after a year of off-time, we finished the deployment pretty quickly! The StickNets are really remarkable. They were designed and built and are maintained entirely by TTU students. Not only are they rapidly-deployable, but because they are unmanned, they can be placed into parts of the storm that you would not want to send people or vehicles! We can deploy them in plenty of time to retreat to safety.