VORTEX 2 should be pleased

The kickass crew of VORTEX 2 (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2) should have had a productive couple of weeks, with at least 50 tornadoes touching down in Oklahoma alone, and enough advance warnings to let them get into position.

I felt for them last year; after five weeks of chasing, they finally intercepted ONE tornado.

 Then, maybe a week after they closed up shop, there was a massive outbreak across two states.





No shortage of activity this year, and that's gotta be one hell of a road show: 80 scientists/crew and 35 vehicles and specialized instruments, all headed to wherever the action looks like it's going to fire up. Still never a sure thing, as their blog makes clear, but it sounds as though they got some good data that can be applied toward their ultimate purpose of gaining a better understanding of how tornadoes form and finding ways to increase the warning time for those in a storm's path.

And, in a semi-related bit of irony, one of the Oklahoma farms where portions of the movie Twister were shot was hit by a tornado during the May 10 outbreak.