Tornado Probe

[Brian Mette]

A buddy of mine had the idea of shooting some kind of instrument package at a tornado with a howitzer. No, I am not joking. He didn't seem to understand why storm chasing with a howitzer might be difficult. Last I heard, he was talking to the ATF about it.

 

[Chris Gullikson]

I always thought it would be interesting to release a semi-truck load of mylar balloons into the inflow of a tornadic supercell. I would think these reflectors would provide some interesting 3D radar data.
Putting a website address with instructions on how to report if found might yield some interesting, or at least entertaining data. Downside would be the environmental impact from all this debris.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I sincerely suggest you watch this series of videos produced back in the 90s: http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Tornado-Experience-1-VHS/dp/6304190999/ref=pd_sim_v_1. There are three of them. In one of the videos they show previous attempts at shooting rockets with instrumentation on them into a tornado.

Bottom line: they were unsuccessful. That's probably the reason you don't see anyone else doing it.

 

[J Tyler]

I sincerely suggest you watch this series of videos produced back in the 90s: http://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-Tornado-Experience-1-VHS/dp/6304190999/ref=pd_sim_v_1. There are three of them. In one of the videos they show previous attempts at shooting rockets with instrumentation on them into a tornado.

Bottom line: they were unsuccessful. That's probably the reason you don't see anyone else doing it.

Are there any VHS videos showing RC airplanes won't work?

 

[Paul Knightley]

To my mind, for any data set to be of any kind of use you would want to fire hundreds of rockets around the storm simultaneously, and repeatedly, in order to sample every piece of air going into and coming out of the storm. Otherwise, you get one trajectory of data and that's it - how will that help forecasting? Models are still pretty/very poor at forecasting exactly where convection will fire - if you want to be able to warn people quite far in advance, you need to be able to resolve the mesoscale reasons for storm formation, and get them to be simulated in models.
Of course, we still want to know the fundamental reason for tornadogenesis, but even if/when we do find it out, unless we can back that up with models which can cause thunderstorms to develop in the correct locations, and simulate the inflow parcels, and exact microphysics of that particular storm cell, I don't see how lives can be saved by such research.

 

[Rob H]

I'd think that equipping 50 chasers or so with a calibrated, standardized set of mesonet gear would provide better results than a rocket probe, for some of the reasons Paul mentioned above. I know some have tried getting a project like this off the ground and there hasn't been much traction. It would be a relatively cheap way to collect data on every storm out there and I'm willing to bet you could find 50 chasers willing to spend their own money to offset some of the cost of the gear.

Also, just thinking about that tornado climatology map, what if there was a really dense mesonet around Aurora, NE and the Palmer Divide - two places that get hit hard by storms. If there was a way for these stations to launch smaller balloons that maybe only sampled up to 850mb or so but could do it every 5 miles and every 15 minutes, I'm assuming that would still be incredibly useful data.

I doubt we'll ever see any of that come to light, but it's interesting thinking of the possibilities.

 

[Donovan Gruner]

I've thought about the idea of a tripod based high power air cannon for shooting probes into storms, but anything that requires an object being propelled at high speeds into the storm just seems too dangerous to me. Sure, you can argue that there very well may be plenty of natural hazards that are more threatening to life and property, but you can NEVER rule out the possibility of a rocket, or air-launched instrument package hitting someone, their house, a car, etc... The liability involved with something like that is enough to deter me from attempting anything of the sorts. Also, as far as rockets go, they also pose the risk of starting fires. They aren't to fond of people starting wildfires around here.

I do think it could be pretty cool if you could somehow work it all out. The key is having something that works, and is also safe for you to use, and safe for the people who might be around it.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Are there any VHS videos showing RC airplanes won't work?

I have not seen any, no.

I agree heavily with what Paul mentioned in terms of what shooting one probe into a tornado would get you. Assume that, despite all the difficulties, flaming hoops, and money issues, you actually DO get a probe into a tornado. You have one data point, essentially. That won't give you much useful data. I think the ideas spawned from Bob H. and Robert H. are much more plausible, but still would be difficult to actually implement. I'm not sure why V2 didn't launch more proximity soundings than they did. I think some research has already been done on the topic of launching radiosondes into the updrafts of supercells. Browse the AMS journals or Google scholar to see if there are any papers on this.

 

[TrumanBoyer]

Rocket Science

BY FAR, the biggest problem with getting any rocket into a tornado is called "weathervaning". Nearly all practical designs for small rockets use fins for stability; to make them fly straight. A rocket with fins will ALWAYS try to fly INTO the wind, unless it has some other type of guidance system (and now we are talking $$$). Nearly all cheap rockets will act like a weathervane and point into the wind. Tornado inflow from all accessible directions will guide the rocket away from the tornado.

I have seen films of attempts to launch rockets into tornadoes and waterspouts, mostly from aircraft, and in every case the rocket "hooks" into the inflow.

DON'T get me wrong, though. I think its a cool idea. There might be a way around this.
Maybe a spin-stabilized design. Somebody crunch on that one a while. I KNOW there is a ton of brainpower in this community, not to mention free time and ambition.

Also, what if you could make a "daisy chain" of balloons ? Tether them all together, as they wrapped around the vortex, the chain might get pulled through the center, right?
Maybe ?

Just food for thought. -Truman