I'm speaking of a local faculty/students team from the NCSU department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. The lucky group, composed of faculty member Dr Matthew Parker and five students, will spend time from now into mid June roaming the plains states in search of tornadoes as part of a major field experiment called VORTEX2 (for Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes EXperiment 2), responsible for launching radiosonde balloons that will measure vertical profiles of temperature, humidity, pressure and wind in the vicinity of tornadic storms.
If you're interested in following the exploits of this group of Wolfpack storm chasers, or the larger VORTEX2 field program in general, see the attached links to a blog from the local group, and to the official site for the experiment, which is hosted by the National Severe Storms Laboratory... and let's wish them all good (and safe) hunting as they work to improve our understanding of tornadoes and ability to forecast their impacts.
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