A long-awaited research project involving drone-based investigation of severe storms will launch this spring.
Researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and three other universities will start the Targeted Observation by Radars and UAS of Supercells project May 15.
The largest-ever study of its kind will involve more than 50 scientists and students, who will use four unmanned aerial vehicles, a manned aircraft, eight trucks equipped with meteorological instruments, several mobile radar systems and sophisticated weather balloons to collect data on supercell thunderstorms, which are thunderstorms with deep rotating updrafts that are the most likely to spawn a tornado.
The project, which was announced last fall and will encompass the 2019 and 2020 severe storm seasons, will cover the Great Plains from North Dakota to Texas, and Iowa to Wyoming and Colorado.
“If there’s a supercell thunderstorm anywhere in the region, we hope to be there,†Adam Houston, associate professor of atmospheric science at UNL and lead investigator, said in a news release.
The goal of the project, which is funded by a three-year, $2.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation, as well as additional funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is to better study the hidden composition of severe storms. The hope is that the data gathered will improve the detection of tornadoes and reduce the number of false-alarm warnings that are issued.
The central Plains, known as “Tornado Alley,†serves as a great laboratory to better understand severe storms, Houston said. Although the central and southern Plains, including Oklahoma and Texas, remain the top U.S. areas for tornadoes, a study late last year suggested tornadoes are occurring more frequently in areas of the Southeast and Midwest.
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Earlier this year, weather forecasting consultant AccuWeather included Nebraska among the four states likely to see higher-than-normal chances of severe weather, including tornadoes, this spring. The other states are Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.
“Every place in the United States is vulnerable to supercell thunderstorms,†Houston said. “What we learn in this laboratory called the central Plains is applicable everywhere. Tornadoes are geographically agnostic.â€
AccuWeather predicts the area of highest tornado risk will stretch from the Texas Gulf Coast through most of Oklahoma and Kansas and into Southeast Nebraska. Nearly all of Nebraska, with the exception of the northern half of the Panhandle, is considered to be at moderate risk.
AccuWeather is predicting 1,075 tornadoes in 2019, which is 9 percent more than the 987 tornadoes in 2018.
During April, Houston and students in his Severe Storms Research Group will finish building a “Mobile Mesonet†SUV specially fitted with the instrumentation needed for the study. It will be one of three such vehicles supplied for the study by UNL. The fixed-wing drones that will be used in the study will be supplied and operated by UNL and the University of Colorado.
The other two schools participating in the project are Texas Tech University and the University of Oklahoma.
Nebraska tornadoes through history
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