Contact: Dane Konop                    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                         
                                       5/16/97

A team of government and university scientists will attempt to intercept tornadic storms in the southwest United States to make close-up observations using two Doppler radars mounted on flatbed trucks through June 10, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced today.

Their goal is to intercept at least one tornado and observe several tornadic storms that don't produce tornadoes to understand why. The radar data collected will give researchers a three-dimensional view of a tornadic storm and ultimately help improve NOAA forecasts and warnings of severe weather, and reduce false alarm rates.

The team will be based at NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla., with principal scientists Erik Rasmussen of the NOAA-University of Oklahoma Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorology Studies in Norman, Jerry Straka and Josh Wurman of Oklahoma University and 20 laboratory and university student volunteers.

"This project, which we are calling Subvortex,' is a follow-up to the VORTEX project in 1994 and 1995, in which we intercepted 10 tornadoes and studied them close up using a suite of instruments, including Wurman's prototype Doppler on Wheels in the second year of the project," Rasmussen said. "The twin Dopplers that will be used in Subvortex will allow us to get high resolution radar coverage of tornado formation. We are especially interested in the little understood rear flank downdraft region of a tornadic storm because it may play a key role in transporting rotation to the ground."

The twin Dopplers on Wheels are unique truck-mounted research radars that can be positioned within a few kilometers of a tornadic storm to document in fine detail wind speeds and reflectivity. The radar scans the entire mesocyclone region (the area of rotating air) every 90 seconds, producing data that should provide major clues into how tornadoes form and persist.

Additional information about tornadoes can be found at WWW.antietam.nssl.uoknor.edu/mosaic_files/vortex.htm.

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