Chasing tornadoes... for science!

Meteorologists and other scientists from across the country have descended on the Plains for another six weeks' worth of storm chasing. They're not just out for the thrill of the hunt, either: They're participating in a multi-million-dollar research project called VORTEX2. Their goal is to learn more about how tornadoes form and why certain thunderstorms are more likely to generate tornadoes than others.

Posted 6:57 p.m. May 3, 2010 — Updated 6:57 p.m. May 3, 2010

Nate Johnson

Meteorologists and other scientists from across the country have descended on the Plains for another six weeks' worth of storm chasing. They're not just out for the thrill of the hunt, either: They're participating in a multi-million-dollar research project called the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2 (or VORTEX2, for short). Their goal is to learn more about how tornadoes form and why certain thunderstorms are more likely to generate tornadoes than others.

One of the NC State participants, Casey Letkewicz, will be blogging from the chase. Casey is a doctoral student in meteorology, having completed her master's degree from NC State earlier this year. (She paid a visit to Web Weather Extra a while back to describe her master's research, a look at how thunderstorm squall lines cross the Appalachian mountains.)

Casey has already filed her first report about their training for this spring. Look for more here in the WRAL WeatherCenter blog in the coming weeks! You can also keep up with weather in the VORTEX2 field area using our exclusive iControl Doppler feature. Click over to iControl (or get there by using keyword "iControl") and click the "Spotlight" button. That will take you the the area most threatened by severe weather on a given day.

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