This is a summary of what project Vortex 2 accomplished during their first year of operation. It was a very slow severe weather season in 2009, at least within the project’s time and space domain.
The Missouri State University chase class converged with the Vortex 2 armada in Sterling, CO on the evening of Thursday June 4th, the day before they (and Vortex 2!) caught their first tornado near LaGrange, WY, indicated by the red dot on the map.
Many of you on the trip were aware that Matt Gingery parted ways with us in Clinton, MO while on the way home Sunday to go chase in northwest Missouri! On this day, one storm in particular crossed into extreme northwest Missouri. It was well-sampled by Vortex 2 but non-tornadic during the sampling. I believe Matt blogged about this chase on this site. If not, I’m sure he can chime in!
I’ll be curious to see if data collected from that storm produces any insight as to why a tornado didn’t form.
More on Project Vortex 2.
The inserted slide was from a Powerpoint presentation with the following authors listed:
Howie Bluestein (University of Oklahoma)
Don Burgess (CIMMS)
David Dowell (NCAR)
Paul Markowski (Penn State)
Erik Rasmussen (CIMMS)
Yvette Richardson (Penn State)
Lou Wicker (NSSL)
Josh Wurman (CSWR)
Ted Keller
Senior Meteorologist
KOLR/KSFX-TV
Storm chasing and more at:
Ceaseless Wind
