Explorations
A Storm is Born
Dispatch 2: Slaves of Data Collection
It's 3:45 on a hot, dusty Wednesday and we've been cruising back and forth along the same 10-mile stretch of road for over two hours. A few puffy cumulus clouds have formed along the dryline, but my novice eyes can't detect signs of a storm brewing.
View from Probe 8 on the long road nowherePhoto by Dana Bauer
Four of us are riding in Probe 8, our geek mobile. Scott Axelson, a recent graduate of the University of Oklahoma, drives with one arm resting on top of the wheel. Andrew Philpott, an undergraduate from Bates College in Maine, mans the laptop computer that collects and displays the data gathered by the instruments on top of the car. Ben Sipprell, a Penn State undergraduate, sits in the back with me, taking notes and handling radio communications.
Our mission is to collect data such as dew point—a measure of moisture in the air— and temperature on both the moist and the dry sides of the dryline. Part of the trick is to find the boundary. Change in dew point is the key. Philpott tracks the graphs on the laptop and tells us when the dew point starts to rise, first slowly and then in small jumps. Sipprell explains that the distance over which the dew point changes is called a moisture gradient, and that the dryline is somewhere on that gradient. As that distance gets shorter, meteorologists like to say that the moisture gradient is tightening. More often than not, this tightening will result in a storm. Not always, though. The IHOP (International H20 Project) team hopes that the data it collects will reveal why the process seems to be hit or miss.
Earlier, Penn State professor Paul Markowski had explained to me why our mobile fleet is so important to finding out what happens along the dryline. "The weather stations operated by the National Weather Service are separated by well over 100 miles," he said. "But moisture gradients can occur over just a couple hundred yards, or less. Vehicles really help in getting ground truth measurements." While the planes collect data in the clouds, and the radars scan the entire field from the four corners of our imaginary box, the cars are in the trenches, gathering information right where the action is. And on days like this, when storms don't form, the teams of students in the cars must be diligent. As the afternoon wears on and the supplies of sugary snacks dwindle, they must keep plugging away.
Ben Sipprell studies all things meterologicalPhoto by Dana Bauer
Voices crackle over the radio. "The dryline has moved. Should we head east to hit it?" asks the team in Probe 6. A plaintive voice from another probe asks to stop for gas. Eric Rasmussen, our field coordinator and consummate radio cheerleader, calls out encouragement: "Hang in there guys. We're getting good data."
Several of the students involved in IHOP are part of a program sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Called Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU), this program brings undergraduates from all over the country to a host institution to experience first-hand how basic research is carried out. In 1995, while he was an undergraduate at Penn State, Markowski spent ten weeks as an REU student chasing tornadoes in Oklahoma. He worked with Rasmussen on a project called VORTEX, Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment. That summer, Markowski discovered how thrilling research could be. His excitement carried him through graduate school at the University of Oklahoma and into a faculty position back at Penn State. The REU students this summer are on a different, and perhaps less sexy, mission, but Markowski still hopes a few will be sold on the research life.
In Probe 8, we've begun to tick off the familiar landmarks on our leg. The Beer Barn at the intersection of route 83. The Texas welcome sign: "Drive friendly. The Texas way." A cluster of cows behind a twisted wire fence. An abandoned Sante Fe train car. The Beer Barn at the intersection of route 83. I can't help but fall asleep.
At 7 p.m., Rasmussen calls it quits, and the armada heads back to the Super 8 Motel in Woodward about 120 miles to the east, our home base for the next couple of days. Even though we didn't see any storms, Rasmussen seems thrilled at the day's run and praises several of the probe teams for doing an excellent job. Later that night, I discover that a graduate student in one of the probes had a fit of temper during the day's mission and demanded to be dropped off at a gas station. Evidently misinformed about our objective, he couldn't understand why we weren't gunning it across the panhandle in hot pursuit of tornadoes that might have formed several counties away.