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Severe weather comes to NSSL's
by Susan Cobb, Meteorologist and Science Writer
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![]() Nature’s laboratory – featuring an historic ice storm, a tornado outbreak, a billion-dollar hailstorm and record breaking flooding – has enabled scientists at NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman, Oklahoma, to study up close some of the wildest weather in the world.
The year 2010 was just underway when an ice storm began to threaten Oklahoma at the end of January. The NOAA Hazardous Weather Testbed (HWT), [http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/projects/hwt] housed in the National Weather Center (NWC) in Norman, was focusing on current and experimental forecasts. The week of the storm, a record crowd gathered for the map discussions, united by a passion for weather and improving forecasts. Such lively discussions spark ideas that are translated into new knowledge and tools – ultimately making weather forecasts and warnings more accurate.
“I literally saw the rotation coming down on the building – we evacuated the floor,” said Kevin Kelleher, deputy director of NSSL, who witnessed the tornado formation. At that same time, NOAA and National Science Foundation researchers with the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment -2 (VORTEX2), [www.nssl.noaa.gov/vortex2 ] the biggest tornado research project in history, were spread out east of Norman. They cast a net of instruments around and under the storms to help them better understand tornadoes and improve tornado warning skill.
Less than a week later, on May 16, a supercell thunderstorm tracked across central Oklahoma producing hail up to the size of softballs and hail drifts several feet deep. It will likely go down as the costliest and most damaging hailstorm in Oklahoma City history. NSSL’s Hail Swath graphic was used to help identify the damage area. The most recent significant weather event in Oklahoma was record-setting rainfall and historic flooding on June 14. By the time it was over, totals of five to nine inches were reported over much of Oklahoma City, with up to 12 inches reported in the north-central areas.
These events illustrate how humans are powerless to prevent severe weather from happening. The advanced research and dedicated researchers at NSSL, however, work to reduce the impacts of severe weather on our lives. |
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July 8, 2010 |
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![]() CLIMATE · OCEANS, GREAT LAKES, and COASTS · WEATHER
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