El Reno Survey Request

[David Hoadley]

I am honored to have been asked by veteran storm chaser and research scientist Anton Seimon to post this ambitious "El Reno Survey Study," which he has initiated. It is quite thorough and detailed, and this data base will be accessible to others. Your participation is requested. The more of us that do so, the more successful this Study will be and the more we all will learn about the El Reno tornado.

- - - David Hoadley

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Dear storm chase colleagues,

Did you observe the El Reno, Oklahoma tornadic supercell on 31 May 2013? If so, we would greatly appreciate your assistance to help serve several major research objectives. Our project, the El Reno Survey, involves the consolidation and analysis of storm observations, records and visual material collected by the multitude of chasers who witnessed this tornadic supercell event. As is now widely known, the El Reno tornado is of major significance for its size, extreme wind speeds, and uneven rapid forward motion, as well as its momentous impact on the storm chasing community. Such characteristics also make it a high priority target for research investigations. Initial attempts to reconstruct events of that afternoon have already been strongly informed by the numerous chase accounts and video excerpts posted on the Internet. For the most part, however, this information remains unconsolidated and lacks supporting information in terms of the exact time that imagery was obtained and specific locations of observers. As time goes on, some of these resources may be taken offline, video and still imagery may be erased from personal archives, other records may become irretrievably lost, and our own memories of event details begin to fade.

The principal objective of the El Reno Survey project is to capture this information while we still can, in an open-access research database. We intend for this database to be made available to all researchers and chasers, where it can be applied in many ways. For example, for the El Reno case:
- to better understand the evolution of this exceptional storm;
- to provide time and location-fixed imagery synchronous with radar scans;
- to document visual characteristics of the complex tornado evolution and the tornado's extraordinary dimensions;
- to document visual characteristics of the storm's lightning activity;
- to explain the unique hazards confronting chasers and the public that day.

Many of you might also benefit from access to this data collection in developing your own research projects and understanding your experience that day in the context of a broader body of information.

To achieve this goal, we have developed a crowd-sourcing approach to begin the process of data consolidation. Our starting point is a short questionnaire that we aim to distribute as widely as possible to reach all parties who might have data to contribute. If you observed the El Reno storm, we would greatly appreciate if you would fill in the survey form, giving information about your experience and what data resources you might be able to provide. We will follow up by email with each respondent. For those able to provide video or still imagery, we recognize the importance of ensuring copyright protection for any such materials utilized, so will rigorously ensure that all information, imagery and data used at any point in this study will be fully accredited to the contributor.

The survey form can be viewed by clicking this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwJag_u2ZymLNFZFWXBlcGl5LWs/edit?usp=sharing
The form is in MS-Word format and can be downloaded from the "File" menu on the toolbar.
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We will be posting this request on several forums used by the storm chase community. Please feel free to pass along this survey request to others who might have information to contribute. If you encounter problems downloading the form, please email us at [email protected] so we'll send you the form directly.

Anton Seimon and John Allen are co-leading the development of this database with the active support of David Hoadley and Elke Edwards. We will provide periodic updates to all contributors, along with links to the database and products developed thereof as they become available.

With our thanks and regards,

Anton, John, David and Elke

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El Reno Survey project team
[email protected]
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[J Allen]

Here is an update on the El Reno Survey project. We have had a modest but highly supportive response so far to our initial solicitation. Twenty individual chasers or chase groups have now submitted survey forms while several others have promised to send theirs in soon. Notably, all respondents have offered to make their video and/or still imagery available to the project database. We have just gone live with a project website (http://el-reno-survey.net/about-the-survey/), from where chasers can now participate in the survey more easily through an online questionnaire (http://el-reno-survey.net/storm-observer-reporting-form/). We will be making frequent updates to that website, as the project progresses, survey results are compiled, and visual materials are analyzed so stay tuned here (http://el-reno-survey.net/category/new/). We thought we might offer an overview of our methods for using storm imagery taken with often-unknown time and location characteristics, and placing it in a framework suitable for research applications.

Time calibration is performed principally through matching lightning flashes recorded on video with cloud-to-ground lightning flashes recorded by the National Lightning Detection Network (http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/GCMD_NLDN.html). Since our primary research interest is the mesocyclone region of the supercell, we use as our reference database all CG flashes recorded within a 25-km (~15 mile) radius of the mesocyclone center, as determined by radar. The storm was a prolific lightning producer at times, giving many opportunities for matching CG events captured on video to the NLDN dataset. Through this method, we are able to determine the actual time of most video clips, provided that they are of sufficient duration to include several flashes. Then, with unedited video footage provided to us by our survey respondents, we can calculate the time offset of the video camera clock from the time-calibrated segments, and thus fix the times of all other clips as well. Through this method we are able to correct the relative time of video footage to within 1 second of actual time.

Establishing the locations where stills and video were obtained is generally possible for much, though not all, imagery. Some chasers can provide us with GPS logs, which makes the task relatively easy. Those without such precision mapping are usually able to reconstruct their driving routes, which helps considerably. Our principal tools for fixing locations and estimating the direction of a camera's field of view are the freely available Google Earth and Google Map software. Satellite views allow us to identify structures and landscape features recorded on the video, with the road network and viewing angle helping to define where the camera must have been located as the imagery was being captured. For video taken from moving vehicles, it is usually possible to count the number of power poles passed after major intersections, or even the dashed paint centerlines on paved roads. The accuracy of these methods varies, but we can generally constrain estimated locations to within 100 meters (~330 ft) of the actual ground point, and often to 10 meters or less.

We will provide further updates and additional insights into our methods and results to this thread on Stormtrack as the project progresses. In the meantime, we express thanks to all who have responded to our survey thus far, and encourage all other chasers who witnessed this momentous storm to please participate as well. As a reminder, the questionnaire can be found online here: http://el-reno-survey.net/storm-observer-reporting-form/ , and the survey form can be viewed by clicking this link: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwJag_u2ZymLNFZFWXBlcGl5LWs/edit?pli=1
The form is in MS-Word format and can be downloaded from the "File" menu on the toolbar.

John Allen, for the project team

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El Reno Survey Project Team
Anton Seimon, New York
John Allen, New York
Elke Edwards, Oklahoma
David Hoadley, Virginia
Email: [email protected]
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[David Hoadley]

Here is another update on the El Reno Survey project ((http://el-reno-survey.net/)


We have survey responses now from 34 El Reno chasers, containing a good mix of chaser types that falls along the lines of the following general categories:
* Scientists and NOAA personnel (6);
* Veteran chasers (6);
* Mainstream chasers & photographers (13);
* Chase tour operators and participants (5);
* Chasers from abroad (3), and
* Newcomers to chasing (1).


Of course, some individuals fit multiple categories. From internet searches and word of mouth references, we have compiled a list of 250 individual chasers or chase groups, who observed the El Reno storm. We have begun reaching out to many of these persons, inviting them to participate in our survey and contribute to the growing database. Want to know if your name is already on our list? Just send us an email at [email protected] and we'll let you know.


The El Reno Survey will be featured on the WeatherBrains (http://weatherbrains.com/weatherbrains/) webcast with James Spann and his panel of experts on Monday night, December 16th. The broadcast will begin at 9:30 pm EST, and Anton Seimon will be a guest panelist. To watch this live, look for the link at http://www.bigbrainsmedia.com/ The show should be available thereafter as podcast 412 on the WeatherBrains channel on YouTube. Our invitation for this interview is largely thanks to the strong support for the project expressed by SPC senior forecaster Roger Edwards, who was a WeatherBrains guest himself back on December 2nd.


Our website now features profiles of our team members and a donation page for those wishing to support the project work.


We warmly thank all who have responded to the survey and many others who have expressed support for the project.


David Hoadley, for the project team


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El Reno Survey Project Team


Anton Seimon PhD, New York
John Allen PhD, New York
Elke Edwards, Oklahoma
David Hoadley, Virginia
Tracie Seimon PhD, New York


Email: [email protected]
Website: http://el-reno-survey.net/

 

[David Hoadley]

A new update has been posted on the El Reno Survey website. The names of 68 current participants are now listed, who have contributed to that large and expanding data base. This update also includes links to “their…El Reno Storm websites and/or video and photo sites.” That list will be updated periodically as new participants join, contribute to the Survey, and are willing to be listed.

Two new web pages to be posted soon are a “Frequently Asked Questions page” and “Recommendations...” to improve storm chasing documentation. The intent of the latter is to recommend to chasers a handful of easy-to-use procedures for future storms, that could enhance the scientific value of their visual material and, through subsequent research, the public welfare.

http://el-reno-survey.net/category/new/