Joplin, Missouri, hosted us the first night of our travels. At 7 am, one of my colleagues woke me with good reason: the sky was green and hailing. Our first taste of severe weather, and the project had not yet started! We were at the apex of a derecho, a straight-line wind event that tore across the country. A tornado warning had been declared for the northern book-end vortex, and as the bow echo passed a mesovortex spun up and earned another tornado warning. With awe we watched the hurricane-force winds threaten to uproot the trees. I found the event especially wonderful because I'd wanted to experience a derecho for the past few years, but knew we would not be chasing any.
The tornado sirens sounded some thirty minutes after the danger had passed. Hotel patrons huddling on the first floor were relieved when I informed them of who I was and why they could believe me that they were completely safe.
With the power knocked out of the hotel, we decided to leave a few hours earlier than planned. We made Norman by about 1pm.
The next two days were filled with trainings and meetings.
And today, VORTEX2 officially began. But alas! A ridge to the west, cold air all around...no supercells for us. Which was fine: today we were able to work out some of the technical difficulties in our brand new equipment and software.
And that's about all I can say.
I'll conclude with some pictures of our hotel parking lot. These hardly do justice to the spectacle of seeing all of the vehicles together. Doesn't help that half of the vehicles are missing.
I drive the van labeled "Probe 7." Click on pictures for full-size images.
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