Vortex 2 Project: Best Recorded Tornado Data in History
By: Danielle Todesco
Updated: June 23, 2009
Texas Tech researchers are back from their huge storm-gathering project, and they're now boasting the best recorded tornado data in history.
The project, called Vortex 2, went from May 10th through June 13th in the central part of the country. They say the first three weeks of the project involving over 100 people was very slow, with no major storms. Then, the last week, they caught a tornado in eastern Wyoming, and recorded data they hope will shape the future of storm research.
Dr. Chris Weiss, Texas Tech Vortex 2 Professor:
"The primary goal is to find cues in the environment that a tornado is going to form and that will increase the lead time for the warnings and right now we average between ten and fifteen minutes. We'd like to up that obviously so that people have more time to prepare for the tornado."
They've now begun to review the data collected from instruments the students created and they expect to find something never known before about tornados.
