By Jane Glenn Cannon
The Oklahoman

Research scientists at the National Weather Center are getting ready to launch their most ambitious tornado study.

VORTEX2- also called V2- is a field experiment to study tornadoes from every angle, much like its forerunner, VORTEX1, which was launched in 1995. The difference between the two studies is in the scope and sophistication of V2, said Don Burgess, a researcher with the Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies at the University of Oklahoma.

The project involves 100 weather researchers representing nine universities, including OU and the National Severe Storms Laboratory, the Center for Severe Weather Research, the University Center for Atmospheric Research and Rasmussen Systems Inc.

Scientists will use 40 weather-tracking vehicles, 10 mobile Doppler radars and an arsenal of other instruments, including unmanned aerial systems, mobile balloons, the most sophisticated mesonets and camera systems.

Beginning May 10, the team of researchers will roam a 900-mile area extending from western Oklahoma and parts of Texas through Kansas, eastern Colorado, Nebraska, western Iowa and southern South Dakota.

The field study will extend through June 13 this year and from May 1 through June 15 next year.

On the practical side, the team will require 50 hotel rooms nightly and a parking lot to handle at least 40 vehicles. Planning has been no easy feat, he said.

VORTEX1, which was conducted during tornado season in 1995 and 1996, used only 20 vehicles and one mobile radar, Burgess said. Data gathered in that field experiment has kept scientist busy for the past 10 years.

“We’ve pretty much exhausted what we can get from that data. So it’s time to go to the field again and refocus our objectives from the standpoint of what we learned from VORTEX1,” Burgess said.

He likens it to peeling an onion. “We peeled layers off with V1, and we are moving on to the layers we want to peel in V2,” he said.

VORTEX2 will focus operations on the Central Plains where a relatively flat landscape will allow mobile radars to collect data close to the ground as the team chases thunderstorms that have the potential to spawn tornadoes.

The data collected will be studied through the next decade to help researchers understand how tornadoes form and how the large-scale environment of thunderstorms is related to tornado formation, Burgess said.

The research will help forecasters issue more precise tornado warnings, with the hope of saving lives and property.