More than 100 scientists and nearly 40 support vehicles will fan out across tornado alley Saturday, the first day of the largest tornado study in history. VORTEX2 (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2) kicks off tomorrow and the chase will be on until June 15th. Ten mobile radars or Dows (Doppler on Wheels) will be employed along with weather balloons, unmanned aircraft, and 12 mobile mesonet vehicles. The goal is to answer some perplexing questions about tornadoes that continue to confound scientists. How and why do tornadoes form? How strong are winds near the ground? What is the structure of the tornado?
Vortex2 is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The severe weather season started off quiet this year. The United States went all the way into late April before there was a "moderate risk" of severe weather according to the Storm Prediction Center. That was the latest into the year we have ever gone before reaching that risk level. Saturday was a reminder that even with slow starts, we need to be vigilant. The killer tornado in Yazoo City was 1.75 miles wide at one point, a record for Mississippi. It produced a nearly 150 mile long track, the fourth longest in Mississippi's history.
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