VORTEX 2: News On 6/NEWS 9 Meteorologists Take Part In Tornado Study

NewsOn6.com

UNDATED -- Tuesday marked the third anniversary since a tornado took out the town of Greensburg, Kansas.

That EF five tornado killed 11 people and destroyed nearly the entire town. Since then, the town had dedicated itself to rebuilding in an environmentally friendly way.

The folks in Greensburg rebuilt their county courthouse, put in a new art center and totally revitalized main street. The mayor says the town used private money to help businesses come back better and stronger.

By Nick Bender, News On 6 Meteorologist

UNDATED -- The weather in tornado alley can be hectic.

The National Weather Service reports 34 tornadoes were recorded in Oklahoma in 2009 and since 1950, more than 3,000 twisters have popped up in the Sooner state.

Analysts can track tornadoes and look for the warning signs but there are still several important bits of information that scientists are still trying to understand.

That's why researchers have launched the second phase of a massive tornado study project.

"VORTEX 2 is the largest, most ambitious tornado study ever," Dr. Josh Wurman, Center for Severe Weather Research, said.

Dr. Josh Wurman is the director of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colorado. He is one of the organizers of VORTEX 2, a two year study of tornadoes. One-hundred-and-sixty scientists and crew members will travel the Midwest for a month-and-a-half.

"VORTEX 2 is observing supercell thunderstorms with mobile radars, with weather balloons, with unmanned aircraft, with mobile mezanet vehicles, with laser disdrometers, almost any kind of instrumentation you can imagine that we can learn more about tornadoes," Dr Wurman said.

Dr, Wurman developed a special truck for the project. It's called a Doppler On Wheels; it's a mobile radar that allows the team to follow supercells as they form across the countryside.

"VORTEX 2 with 50 scientific vehicles is an extremely complex choreography and we're literally doing a dance around the supercell," Dr. Wurman said. "We're keeping various pieces in various places and then hop scotching them around every few minutes. It's very complex."

This is the second year of the study. Dr. Wurman and his crew tracked storm after storm this time a year ago.

While last season was a mild compared to a typical year, Dr. Wurman says that's actually a positive for the study because it's just as important to study storms that don't form tornadoes as those that do form tornadoes.

And there were several other days that don't get popularized but were very important to use scientifically because they were vigorous storms with hook echoes, mezacyclones that didn't make tornadoes," he said. "What we're studying now is the difference between those ones that didn't and the ones that did."

Something new for this year that the team didn't have last year is unmanned aircraft. That will allow researchers to get above the storm.

"We're going to try to fly in the clear slot, southwest of the tornado, in that region there and get temperatures above the ground," Dr. Lou Wicker, National Severe Storms Lab, said. "That's a very critical area for us."

The ultimate goal is to increase the warning time for a tornado and protect lives.

"Our goal, and I think all tornado scientists are optimists, is to make warnings that might have 30 minutes, 45 minutes lead time and to make warnings that have much more precision, perhaps even the strength of a tornado which is coming to a particular town," Dr. Wurman said.

NewsOn6.com & News9.com

May 3, 1:45 p.m.

BLOG POST: Meteorologist Nick Bender

UNDATED -- It's hard to not be overwhelmed while embedded with just one-third of the VORTEX 2 fleet.  

Some of the brightest minds and most advanced meteorological equipment in the world are converging on the Great Plains for eight weeks in search of tornadoes. We've been traveling with the Center for Severe Weather Research group (CSWR), led by Dr. Josh Wurman.

Like nomads, our travels have taken us from Green Country north to Wichita, Greensburg and Dodge City, Kansas.

I am sitting now in our hotel room awaiting the afternoon operations briefing.

What constitutes the bulk of the VORTEX 2 fleet is en route to our current location, which cannot be disclosed due to public safety reasons.  

VORTEX2 has made its presence known, but ironically Mother Nature hasn't. Barring a few anemic thunderstorms we encountered in western Oklahoma Sunday afternoon, the weather has been unseasonably quiet.

Great news for you and me, but not so if you have over $10 million invested into an operation whose goal is to document the life cycle of a tornado.

So, here I sit in my hotel room awaiting the afternoon meeting, while the VORTEX 2 technicians tirelessly check, and recheck the equipment.

The weather outlook for the rest of the week doesn't look promising for tornadoes, but it is the Plains and things do change rather quickly.

NewsOn6.com & News9.com

UNDATED -- Meteorologists from the The News On 6 and NEWS 9 are joining a huge scientific effort to study tornadoes called VORTEX 2.

The National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are contributing more than $10 million for the study.

American tornado experts are coming from more than a dozen universities and several government and private organizations.  Internationally, experts are coming from Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada and Australia.

Check NewsOn6.com's weather page.

Check News9.com's weather page.

Representing The News On 6 and NEWS 9 will be meteorologists Nick Bender and Tom Bennett.

"I've been looking forward to this for 20 years," said Tom Bennett, who works as a weather producer at The News On 6.

VORTEX stands for Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment.  The first one, known as VORTEX 1, took place 15 years ago.

Nick Bender, who worked at NEWS 9 before moving up the turnpike to The News On 6, says it's a dream come true to be able to cover VORTEX 2.  "I grew up watching videos with the VORTEX stamp on them and now I get to participate in it."

Read Nick Bender's bio.

Bennett remembers seeing noted University of Oklahoma tornado researcher Dr. Howard Bluestein and five students doing some tornado research in the field back in 1990.  He says he knew then there'd come a day when the study of tornadoes would involve a much larger,  coordinated scientific effort.

Both Bennett and Bender say the science has come a long way since the first VORTEX and they're thrilled to be rubbing elbows with the biggest names in tornado research.

"This is the All-Star game for weather," Bennett said.

The News On 6/NEWS 9 crew is one of only two local television crews to be allowed to cover the project. 

VORTEX 2 officially begins May 1st and Nick and Tom will be sending video, photo and text updates as they travel with the team in its efforts to track and study tornadoes.  They're joined by NewsOn6.com photojournalist Chris Howell.  Watch for their updates on News9.com and NewsOn6.com, as well as on the air at NEWS 9 and The News On 6.

Read more about VORTEX 2.