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Largest High-Tech Tornado Chase Set To Begin
coondoggie writes "Next month, with the help of a variety of high-tech gear, researchers will begin a wide-ranging project to better understand the origin, structure and evolution of tornadoes. The National Science Foundation has given $9.1 million to the project called Vortex2 (of course it has a convoluted backronym), which will take place from May 10-June 13. Researchers say Vortex2 is the largest attempt in history to study tornadoes, and will involve more than 50 scientists, 40 research vehicles, and 10 mobile radars, and will cover 900 square miles in southern South Dakota, western Iowa, eastern Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, the Texas panhandle, and western Oklahoma."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN2_czSBSD0&NR=1
Watch it all the way through. From 2:10 to the end is breathtaking.
Unless the Tornado Intercept Vehicle is part of the team, it's just a bunch of pansies chasing wind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_Intercept_Vehicle
Seismometers just seems a cool way of detecting and confirming tornadoes. http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/contentbe/dispatch/2006/03/28/20060328-C4-00.html
BTW, the Blue Ash tornado they mention actually woke me up. I remember hearing a train-like sound and thinking "I hope that's not a tornado. I don't want to sleep in the bathtub." Turns out the sucker must have been descending as it went over me. Touched down about a mile away, but the path points right back to where I lived.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I'm all for subtle instruments delicately probing the deepest tornadic secrets; there is much to be learned. But dammit, I want hardcore tornado pr0n! I want the money shots from INSIDE a big, nasty, mile-wide wedge twister! I want on good video, what Will Keller described when he was caught in one. Thermodynamic and microphysical data are great, but GIVE US THE PR0N!!! :D
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
They do have a vehicle for that. It's called the TIV or Tornado Intercept Vehicle. I live in the Midwest (one of the states mentioned above) and we heard (and saw) that the TIV was passing by last May when a F2 tornado tore through city. If your curious, the vehicle is featured on a show called Storm Chasers on Discovery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tornado_Intercept_Vehicle
Actually, the real thing was called TOTO, TOtable Tornado Observatory. They apparently didn't work (they couldn't position it properly, the best try just blew it over instead of picking it up) and were retired in 1987, according to Wikipedia. It was, however, named after the little dog.