Patrick, Got to admit, you offended me when you said I was not "in tune" with the research. That really, really bothered me, beyond anyting you can imagine. Patrick, I graduated from OU a number of years ago. My advisers are all gone now from OU, but I have taken OU with me with great pride. I have read and read and learned even AFTER leaving grad school. To say that I have no idea what is going is the insult.
I don't care who you are on StormTrack, you are a storm chaser and love meteorology. I RESPECT every person here and it's a lesson in life... You should too and so should Josh. Every person on the road that is chasing any storm has some passion for the science. Storms are real.. It's natural for anyone with an ounce of interest in science to be interested in storms. They're NOT clogging up the roads; they're out there trying to see science.
Sadly, I believe what I do... There are limits to what we learn in science. I agree, VORTEX will raise questions, but are they any different than the questions we asked during the TOTO years? It is my opinion that we have asked the same questions over and over, but will we answer them? Not yet. VORTEX has an incredible set of data from this year. It will feed grad students for 10 years. Will it answer the question of tornadogensis? Probably not. Will it answer why vorticity is transfered from a background field? Will we get better from it? I'm not sure. The advancement may come in radar and warnings, but the true, great answer to why tornadoes form might NEVER be answered. I've been watching for 28 years and I'm still puzzled.
As for Doug Lilly, I just used him as an example. As brilliant as Doug was, he had some great ideas but none of them ever gave us the answer. I'm sure you've read Doug's papers (If they can be understood) and the same for Bob Davies Jones, but my statement is: it's 10 years down the line before we even get a clue from the data being collected today. And if Josh is making a big deal about losing one day of data collection in 2010, it's not worth it. As I stated, the Dimmitt study came out with one conclusion (hats off to Paul and Eric) but that's it. What will VORTEX 2009 and 2010 come up with?
Ok, it's clear that what Patrick said touched a nerve with you. I won't speak for him, but I will say what I think. He was giving an opinion directly related to something you said about us reaching the limit of our science in regards to tornadogenesis. He disagreed with you, and pointed out that we are still making great strides in this area. I probably would have used different words, but I sincerely doubt he meant to insult you in any way. As a case in point, check out any of Paul Markowski's recent papers in the past decade about thermodynamics of RFDs.
You know what, I agree with you that it is going to take some time (10+ years) to really get the full meaning out of the data collected with V2, and we will almost certainly not answer all the questions we have posed. Full disclosure, I was a participant in V2 for the full 6 weeks this past year. I went into it knowing full well that the gains in science would likely manifest themselves slowly, over a period of several years, and would likely not take the form any of us expected. Perhaps we will find that our entire methodology for the data collection we were performing was flawed. I sincerely doubt this, but even if true, it was still worth it, because it will cause us to re-evaluate our assumptions and theories. Either way, we win, and we learn more for the next project.
Maybe I'm just hopelessly idealistic, but if I've learned anything from the history of science, it's that whenever someone comes along and says, "We've learned pretty much all we can here", they are almost certainly wrong, and in some cases appallingly so (consider Ryan's quote above). Sure, some things in science are more nailed down than others, but tornadogenesis is definitely not one of them, and I'm convinced some great discoveries are coming down the road. So much so that I've devoted my career to being part of it. That was my motivation for getting involved in a project like V2
Thus, you can imagine my dismay when some folks hang their hat on what one researcher said on one day a month ago, and let that color their perception of the entire V2 project. Furthermore, I and others worked our tails off to do our respective jobs in a team effort, trying to stay as coordinated as possible. To hear some folks mouth off on a forum about how this-or-that chaser got into position on a tornadic storm before we did, and therefore this clearly means that they are smarter/better than us (as if you could really fairly compare a single chaser to trying to get an entire armada of 40+ vehicles into coordinated positions), stings a bit, especially when a lot of the V2 participants are also "amateur" storm chasers, contributors to Stormtrack, and would likely have made different decisions had they been chasing alone. All I'm asking is that you and others consider this in your criticisms of V2. Yes, there are legitimate criticisms to be made of the project, as well as what one or more of the researchers have said publicly, and I can assure you that many of the ones you and others might have thought of have already been aired within the group itself.
Dan
EDIT: I shouldn't have to say this, but let me be clear that I do definitely agree that spotting/chasing still plays a significant role in the NWS warning process, and to the extent that Dr. Wurman or anyone else claims that they don't, I strongly disagree. In addition, I think that everyone out storm chasing in a safe legal manner, has the same privileges (not rights) as anyone else, regardless if they are doing so for spotting, "amateur" chasing, or scientific chasing purposes.
If V2 was so High and mighty they should have known what cell to target and been there before the rest of us. 
Standing ovation from me. Thanks for telling the truth. Steve, you are NOW my best friend!!!
