Doppler on Wheels

Another great writeup on our Greenfield, IA tornado (5/21/2024) data collection during NSF BEST project.

"We knew we were in the bear’s cage." In May, a Doppler on Wheels/NSF BEST team got close to the Greenfield tornado, capturing high-res data and some of the fastest recorded tornado winds. Hear about the experience from NSF BEST Project PI Karen Kosiba and Jen Walton Girls Who Chase on the AMS blog: https://bit.ly/3YilWey

Photo credit: Lauren Baca Photography

Saw Twisters and want some IRL Tornado science?

Come talk to the REAL tornado scientists Karen Kosiba and Josh Wurman from the Doppler on Wheels FARM facility tomorrow (Tuesday, 23 July 2024) along with the Girls Who Chase founder Jen Walton.

It's a virtual webinar, so you don't need to get dressed up (unless that's your thing 😉), but you do need to REGISTER using the QR code or the link in the comments. See you there, 7PM EDT (5PM MDT)!

Our leader Karen Kosiba is cited in a Nature article about what the latest Twisters movie gets right and wrong about tornado science, of which the DOW radars have been a vital part.

What Twisters gets right — and wrong — about tornado science Nature talks to tornado specialists and scientific advisers for the new disaster film about how it stacks up.

A great look into the amazing work the University of Illinois students and faculty undertook during the PERiLS field project in Spring 2022 and 2023, which included the DOW radars and the rest of the FARM facility instrumentation.

https://youtu.be/Sec6BDE0rVE?feature=shared

On 21 May 2024, DOW radars near Greenfield, IA, recorded a tornado windspeeds of 309-318 mph, among the fastest ever! Join our webinar to hear from Karen Kosiba and Josh Wurman, moderated by Girls Who Chase's Jen Walton, on DOW dataset insights.

Register here: https://bit.ly/3zDHUhR

Join us on July 23rd for this free webinar with AMS Weather Band! We'll be talking about our successful NSF BEST mission tornado chases this year, where we measured some of the fastest winds ever seen in tornadoes.

In case you missed the live NBC Nightly News segment tonight (6/24) on the ground-breaking DOW radar data in the Greenfield, IA tornado on 21 May 2024. Here's the link:

Storm chasers capture tornado's 300 mph wind speed A group of storm chasers was able to place equipment that measured the severity a deadly twister that tore through Greenfield, Iowa, last month. They were able to record winds of 300 miles per hour. NBC News' Maggie Vespa reports.

TONIGHT (6/24/2024): Tune in to NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt at 6:30pm ET for a live piece about the Doppler on Wheels Greenfield, IA tornado intercept!

A nice article from NBC on our FARM Facility intercept of the Greenfield, IA EF-4 tornado back on May 21, 2024 as part of the NSF BEST project.

Storm chasers catch tornado winds above 300 mph in rare 'intercept' Scientists captured a wealth of data from a powerful twister that recently tore through Iowa. It could inform research for years to come.

DOWs 7 and 8 recently traveled to the Texas-Louisiana border to deploy on category 4 Hurricane Laura as it made landfall along the Gulf coast. After two long days of driving, followed by a full day of getting wrapped in duct tape, tarps, and ratchet straps the DOWs began their long night of scanning, hoping to capture elusive mesovortices and TSVs (tornado-scale vortices) in the hurricane eye. The mission was recently featured in the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/08/30/doppler-on-wheels-hurricane-laura/ and https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/weather/2020/08/27/storm-chasers-hurricane-laura/).

Scientists drove radars inside Hurricane Laura’s fiercest winds, hoping to unravel their mysteries The scientists were on the hunt for destructive whirlwinds that lurk inside of hurricanes.

In late 2018, CSWR played prominantly in project RELAMPAGO, one of the largest projects ever undertaken by NSF. Multiple institutions, universities and research organizations converged on Córdoba, Argentina to observe storm formation and evolution in a region of the world not thoroughly studied. Recently the project, as well as CSWR's contribution, was featured in an article in the New York Times.

What’s Going on Inside the Fearsome Thunderstorms of Córdoba Province? Scientists are studying the extreme weather in northern Argentina to see how it works — and what it can tell us about the monster storms in our future.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) put together a quick video sharing new research results from the NSF-funded SNOWIE project, which quantified how much snow was generated from glaciogenic cloud seeding. This work was partly possible due to observations from the DOW radars and CSWR staff who manned the radars on remote mountaintop locations in Idaho.

https://youtu.be/MlyMVfizGb8

Let it snow: Scientists show cloud seeding generates snow in most comprehensive study yet Scientists demonstrate that cloud seeding can generate snowfall Research answers long question about effectiveness of cloud seeding Scientists have successfu...

Three years ago, CSWR participated in SNOWIE in central Idaho, a project to evaluate the potential of seeding winter clouds to enhance snowfall. This week, scientists released their findings proving conclusively that it works:

Boulder scientists prove snowmaking potential of cloud seeding Boulder scientists have for the first time shown conclusively that cloud seeding can enhance snowfall when the conditions are right.

Welcome home DOW7! The DOW has just returned from the University of North Dakota, where it participated in BLOWN-UNDER, a university project led by Aaron Kennedy to study blowing snow and blizzard conditions.

KRRV TV in N.D. recently had a segment on the project:

UND Students Get "Blown Under" In Order To Study Blizzards - KVRR Local News   GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Strong winds, rapidly dropping temperatures and blowing snow. All make for the perfect conditions for a research project at the University of North Dakota. For these students and professors, their goal this winter is to study blizzards and blowing snow in ways that have not ...

Have you ever experienced a lake-effect snow band?

Newly published research by CSWR dives into the science behind small-scale spin-ups (misovortices) embedded within lake-effect snow bands. CSWR's high-resolution Doppler On Wheels (DOW) mobile radars were able to observe these misovortices in extreme detail during the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Ontario Winter Lake-effect Systems (OWLeS) field project. Check it out!

https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/MWR-D-19-0182.1

journals.ametsoc.org

Preliminary DOW data from the Mangum, OK tornado today (20 May 2019). Unofficial delta-V (difference between in/out bound Doppler Velocities) of 90-95 m/s in the 5-deg scan. POD deployments were not possible due to increased traffic and fast storm motions.

On Friday, 17 May 2019 the CSWR team successfully measured winds in a tornado west of the town of McCook, Nebraska utilizing 4 tornado PODs, 1 mobile mesonet (SCOUT3), and 1 Doppler On Wheels mobile radar (DOW7). At least one POD, the SCOUT3 mobile mesonet, and the DOW7 radar were within 1 km of the tornado, providing a unique up-close view of a tornado for science. POD_D measured a preliminary 1-meter peak wind speed of 26.7 m/s (59.7 mph) as the tornado moved past. Fine resolution DOW radar data and additional POD data are being analyzed to determine whether core flow was sampled.

We are on the road in preparation for chasing severe storms tomorrow (Friday, 17 May). We were welcomed by a line of thunderstorms in southern Nebraska, which made for interesting views.

The next week looks fairly active for severe weather in the US Plains. CSWR is prepared to deploy one DOW radar and at least one SCOUT mesonet for the upcoming severe threat. But for now, we're enjoying the increased convective clouds over Colorado.

Twenty years ago on May 3, an extraordinarilly powerful F5 tornado devasted southern Oklahoma City and surrounding areas. The 1999 Bridge Creek-Moore tornado killed 36 people and caused nearly $1 billion in damages, prompting President Bill Clinton to sign a major disaster declaration for the affected areas. DOW2 and DOW3 were both on hand to observe the event for project ROTATE, with DOW3 recording the highest wind speed ever observed on Earth: 301 (+/- 20) mph at the point when the tornado was at its strongest, before striking Moore.

To learn more, please visit www.cswr.org for links to journal articles written about the event.

Looking for something to do this Saturday? Come visit us at Weatherfest! You will have the opportunity to explore the inside of DOW-7 and talk with one of our scientists.
Weatherfest is open to the public and is held annually in Lincoln, Nebraska. If you're a weather enthusiast, this is an event that you and your family will enjoy!

DOW7 and students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are currently out chasing thunderstorms in northeast KS as part of the UNDEO-6 educational research project.

Welcome home from Argentina DOWs!

The CSWR DOW and scout fleet has been transported to Buenos Aires following the successful RELAMPAGO field project. The fleet will spend some time at SMN (Argentina's national weather service) before being loaded on a ship heading back to the US. Thanks to the SMN employees for all their hard work that went into making RELAMPAGO successful, and thanks for babysitting the DOWs!

As the RELAMPAGO project closes in on its final week, we want to thank all the people that put in such hard work to help make the project a success, including students, P*s, and the local Argentinean weather forecasters. We were fortunate to have a professional photographer along to snap a few pictures of some of the CSWR sounding and DOW radar crews today.

The RELAMPAGO field crew are returning to home base today after two very successful missions in the Mendoza Province near the city of San Rafael. Some incredible data were collected on severe thunderstorms in the region. These photos show some of the beautiful scenes captured during IOP09.

Fueling up is typically not a very photogenic moment, but DOW6 makes it look so good! We just completed RELAMPAGO IOP07 when this photo was taken.