VORTEX2

[George Limpert]

Maybe I just don't see the issue here... today V2 and our crew SHARED the same storm in the TX panhandle. Sure we saw each other a couple times... but we never had a problem with each other at all. It's big country out here... there's plenty of room. We each did our own thing and everyone was just fine at the end of it all.

You're right about that. Also, a portion of the VORTEX2 armada will be positioned in areas where most chasers won't have an interest in being. Sure, 40 vehicles sounds like a lot, but not all 40 of those vehicles will even be in areas where chasers want to be. I just don't see it as being an us versus them thing.

 

[Jacob Ferden]

Mods: I probably should not be the one to bring this up, but:

This area is called Weather Discussion - Advanced. It goes on to say that beginners may participate as long as they don't mind the technical level. I think we've moved from technical discussion to flaming. It's your call, but I think we've all been drifting a bit too much here.

 

[Dan Dawson]

Just a quick note here. For those asking what we have learned from the original project VORTEX, and why we need another one, etc., all you need to do is do a quick search on the AMS journal web site as a first effort for recent papers dealing with tornadoes and supercell storms. Many of those papers since 94/95 deal explicitly with cases from the original VORTEX. We have learned a *lot* from the original project VORTEX, and also identified areas where our knowledge is still deficient (i.e. the RFD-tornado connection and why some storms produce warm RFDs and others cold, to name just a couple). Science is an incremental process. Often we don't even know the right questions to ask. Our ignorance of the phenomena we are studying far far outweighs what we can claim to reliably "know" (which is still a great deal). If that surprises anyone, it should, because it sure as heck surprised me when I first really started getting into the meat of my graduate research. Not only that, but the fruits of scientific endeavors such as V2 often take many years, even decades to ripen fully. Unfortunately, we humans are often very poor at appreciating long-term benefits, a problem that has only been made worse by the current culture of "instant gratification".

By the way, the funding for V2 is a drop in the bucket compared to the total funding for science in our country, let alone the budget for things such as national defense, etc. For us chasers, the return on our investment from such projects, in my humble opinion, far outweighs the proportional expense from our tax money. Make no mistake, data gathered from V2 will eventually make its way into better warnings, a much better false-alarm ratio, and (most exciting to me) better forecast models. I can foresee a time in the not-so-distant future when probablistic forecasts of tornadic activity in individual cells from high-res numerical models will become possible. Imagine the benefits to reducing costs of chasing if you have a good idea 2-3 hours ahead of time which storms are most likely to drop tubes! Surely we all can appreciate that!

Finally, I agree with several others in this thread who have pointed out that the vast majority of V2 participants themselves chase regularly outside of scientific projects. Please lets not get into an us vs. them attitude. The last thing we need as a community is such infighting. I apologize if it seems to some that I've contributed to that by suggesting to people to consider moving for radar trucks, etc., but I still think that is a reasonable request. Again, not a mandate, but a request! It's unfortunate that the first instinct of some is to dig in their heels instead of thinking calmly about it. There need be no line in the sand here.

 

[Wes Carter]

Good night, it sounds like the Vortex 2 guys are a bunch of clones of Jonas. Will they run me off the road trying to pass?

We were in the same area with many of them near Memphis and Childress, TX today. They did their thing and we did ours. The most interaction was friendly waves both ways. I don't think there is much to worry about.

 

[Bart_Comstock]

I personally do not see the problem with moving out of the way of a DOW or any other research vehicle or normal chaser for that matter. Sometimes in the heat of the moment one may park in a way that he or she is safely off the road but has only allowed room for just them selves when room is present for two or more vehicles at the spot they are at. Also there are many more places to film vs. the number of places to set a DOW up on. Furthermore, I personally believe that V2 is a very important project that should be respected for the fact that (but not bow downed to), although I don't believe they will solve the mystery behind tornado genesis I do think they will take us in a big leap in the right way. The problem is we are trying to solve a massive puzzle that we have done well so far at doing... however its fairly hard for us to put much more of it together as we don't have nearly all the pieces and the majority of the ones we do have are already snapped together. V2 should help us by finding more of those pieces to the puzzle so that we may put more of it together. We are coming close to the limit as to how accurately we can warn and predict tornadoes with the information we currently know and the data we currently have. We are stuck at that point where until we see rotation on radar or a spotter/public/chaser/EM sees that a tornado is on the ground or that it one is imminent we wont know if a storm will 100% become capable of producing in its lifetime and even then its not a sure fire thing that a warning placed on a storm for those reasons (excluding a tornado reported on the ground) will verify. We may never get to the point where we can a tornado warning on a cell before we can now but we may be able to significantly lower the amount of false alarms and thus heighten the public's level of seriousness which they take said warnings with, thus lowering the number of tornado related fatalities and that possibility alone should justify the cost and effort of this project. One can never know what is truly achievable until they try otherwise the world would still be a flat land of grunting, uncivil cave men who even lack fire. In the long term I believe that we will be able to look back on V2 as a success and needed aid to our understanding of tornadoes.

I also see a lot of talk about just the DOWs on this thread and remember there are 40 vehicles in V2 and only 8 of those are going to be radar trucks and not all are monsters in size and of those 8 not all will be where you as a chaser would want to set up on the hopeful tornado, so its not going to be like every time you go chasing you will have to yield your parking spot to the DOWs or will be asked to move or even see them. In fact I bet that the vast majority of us will never once be asked this season to move a little so that a DOW can squeeze in. It should also be noted that many of the radar trucks that will be in the field this year as well as the support vehicles were already out in the field over the last several seasons, the only difference this year is they have all organized into one "armada". Really I see this years chaser traffic and the armada's traffic risk to just be a business as usual threat and IMHO nothing has really changed from last years risk of traffic jams other than the continued upswing in new chasers that are hitting the road their first time this year.

IMHO, part of sharing the road means that we cant go to a spot and plant a flag in it as ours to own for the moment and that said we cant also invade another part of the road and force who ever is there out. If someone asks me to kindly move so they can have room to also stop or to set up a instrument or a streaming dash cam I would gladly do so, so long as I will not have to move a mile or move with out to much effort like tearing down a tripod while a tornado is on the ground. Remember what the word share actually means.

Share (verb),
1)To give part of what one has to somebody else to use or consume.
2)To have in common
3)The joint use of a resource or space. In its narrow sense, it refers to joint or alternating use of an inherently finite good, such as a common pasture.

I know this has been a stressful and frustrating year with the lack of tornadoes in comparison to the monster of 08' and the fact that the forecasting this year has not been by any means the easiest but before we blow our tops and tell someone to get the **** out of "our" parking spots or to "**** off, this is MY land go somewhere else" (I'm not pointing fingers or quoting or mocking anyone on either side of the discussion) lets just be cautious or our fellow chasers, we have the same rights they do just as they have the same that we do. I fully believe in both the "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" philosophy as well as the golden rule when it comes to fellow chasers and with this post I am not telling you that you should park a certain way to that you have to move as the choice is ultimately yours I am just saying how I feel and hopefully how I would behave in the field.

Well I will climb off my soapbox now. Goodluck to all of you for the rest of the season and may this forecasted ridge be a flop of a forecast like the one that was suposed to decend upon us in late May of 2008.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

Frequently Asked Questions For sci.geo.stormtrack.vortex2-thread
---------------------------------------------------------------

Q1: What is Vortex 2?

Vortex 2 is a two year science mission to study various supercellular parameters and how they relate to tornado genesis. You can find out more here.

Q2: Well I think it's useless.

It's not useless -- just do a bit of research and you will see their team research goals.

Q3: Clicking links is a lot of work. I don't want to.

Okay.

Q4: Well I still think it's useless.

See Q1.

Q5: If I'm on the plains and a Vortex 2 radar truck pulls next to me and kindly asks me if I can maybe move my car 20 feet to the north so that he can have an unobstructed view to collect data for a 12 million dollar science project designed to help save lives, can I kill him and take his truck?

No. Murdering radar truck drivers is illegal. The kind thing to do would be to smile and agree and move the car 20 feet to the north. Possibly later the Vortex 2 driver will buy you a beer.

Q6: But what if I don't want to move? Can I tell him to screw off? Can I make an obscene gesture? Can I passively-aggressively sigh and roll my eyes?

Yes, all of these things are allowable responses; however, you may wish to consult alt.jerks.recovery for further information about why these responses may not be perceived as optimal.

Q7: Okay but what if the truck driver is a real idiot. He's just looking at me funny when I ask him to "cross my palm with silver". What if he tries to battle ram me?

This is a highly improbable scenario. If it occurs, you should contact law enforcement.

Q8: Okay but what if the truck driver has zombie dogs, and the dogs are like, barking, and every time they bark, zombie bees come out of their mouth and try to turn me into a zombie with their zombie stings?

Zombie mitigation is outside the purview of this FAQ, however, it should be noted that it is highly unlikely you will be able to successfully destroy the central nervous system of a large quantities of zombie bees and zombie dogs before you succumb to stings and bites. The most prudent course of action would be to depress the accelerator to the floor and not release it until you have crossed a state line. Please consult sci.geo.vortex2.zombie-dogs for more information.

Q9: But I don't want to move for anyone, ever! I'm a very special person!

It's okay. Yes, you are.

Q10: Where can I become a certified chaser? Do they issue free lightbars?

 

[Darren Addy]

MODS: Can we make that last post the new Vortex2 Sticky?

 

[Brandon Goforth]

Frequently Asked Questions For sci.geo.stormtrack.vortex2-thread
---------------------------------------------------------------

Q1: What is Vortex 2?

Vortex 2 is a two year science mission to study various supercellular parameters and how they relate to tornado genesis. You can find out more here.

Q2: Well I think it's useless.

It's not useless -- just do a bit of research and you will see their team research goals.

Q3: Clicking links is a lot of work. I don't want to.

Okay.

Q4: Well I still think it's useless.

See Q1.

Q5: If I'm on the plains and a Vortex 2 radar truck pulls next to me and kindly asks me if I can maybe move my car 20 feet to the north so that he can have an unobstructed view to collect data for a 12 million dollar science project designed to help save lives, can I kill him and take his truck?

No. Murdering radar truck drivers is illegal. The kind thing to do would be to smile and agree and move the car 20 feet to the north. Possibly later the Vortex 2 driver will buy you a beer.

Q6: But what if I don't want to move? Can I tell him to screw off? Can I make an obscene gesture? Can I passively-aggressively sigh and roll my eyes?

Yes, all of these things are allowable responses; however, you may wish to consult alt.jerks.recovery for further information about why these responses may not be perceived as optimal.

Q7: Okay but what if the truck driver is a real idiot. He's just looking at me funny when I ask him to "cross my palm with silver". What if he tries to battle ram me?

This is a highly improbable scenario. If it occurs, you should contact law enforcement.

Q8: Okay but what if the truck driver has zombie dogs, and the dogs are like, barking, and every time they bark, zombie bees come out of their mouth and try to turn me into a zombie with their zombie stings?

Zombie mitigation is outside the purview of this FAQ, however, it should be noted that it is highly unlikely you will be able to successfully destroy the central nervous system of a large quantities of zombie bees and zombie dogs before you succumb to stings and bites. The most prudent course of action would be to depress the accelerator to the floor and not release it until you have crossed a state line. Please consult sci.geo.vortex2.zombie-dogs for more information.

Q9: But I don't want to move for anyone, ever! I'm a very special person!

It's okay. Yes, you are.

Q10: Where can I become a certified chaser? Do they issue free lightbars?

LOL!!!!! That was great!

Sure, I bet Vortex 2 collects a lot of data, some of which will be quite useful...but will the benefits of the research be worth the $12 million price tag in the end, especially with all of the other stuff going on in the world today? I don't know...that's highly subjective. I still haven't found anything that explains how big of an impact this will have on the current warning system or with forecasting. How much faster will we be able to determine that a tornado is developing? When can we see the research implemented into the current system after the project is completed? You see, try to look at the big picture here, the science and research is only a small slice of a bigger pie. It's not about what research has done in the past, it's about with the current Vortex 2 project will accomplish, and how those accomplishments will help society. These are pretty basic project management questions...I'm assuming someone did the math to justify this spending, right? It's easy to sit there and say "ohhh this will be great, it's going to help out so much, and do so much good!!! Surely warning time will improve after this and the failure rate will drop!! OMG this is incredible!!! It's going to save lives!!" If that's the case, being an I.T. analyst, I could get any system I wanted implemented at the blink of an eye without worrying about cost...that'd be nice...I don't think anyone will argue that VORTEX 2 is completely useless...but is it worth the cost? Does anyone have any actual numbers to back this project? Or is it all just a "let's go research and hope we learn something useful enough to make it worth while"? How much more warning time will people get? How much might this affect the fatality rate from severe storms? How much will this impact the failure rate? By how much? An improvement of 50%? 75%? .0005%? You see what I just did there?

 

[Amos Magliocco]

Another way to see how VORTEX changed operational meteorology would be to study the SELS/SPC Outlook forecast discussions through the years, especially from '96 until today. In the fourteen years I've been reading those products, the incorporation of material regarding boundaries, SRH, low level shear, and a myriad of other concepts has been obvious in both the diagnostic and prognostic portions of those outlooks. The old products are available to peruse without much trouble. If you want to see where the rubber meets the road, that's one place to find it. If you've learned anything about forecasting severe storms and tornadoes from reading the Day 1 or Day 2 outlooks, then you've benefitted directly from the original VORTEX.

The backlash against science here on Stormtrack is a real marker of what chasing is about today. The magazine from which this website takes its name was founded to *enhance* cooperation between independent chasers and scientists. I'm also surprised that the editorial voice of Stormtrack is absent in this debate, another sea change from the Hoadley/Marshall days.

Just a quick note here. For those asking what we have learned from the original project VORTEX, and why we need another one, etc., all you need to do is do a quick search on the AMS journal web site as a first effort for recent papers dealing with tornadoes and supercell storms. Many of those papers since 94/95 deal explicitly with cases from the original VORTEX. We have learned a *lot* from the original project VORTEX,

 

[Darren Addy]

It's easy to sit there and say "ohhh this will be great, it's going to help out so much, and do so much good!!!

Equally easy to sit there and say "That's a lot of money. Should we spend it when we can't put a quantifiable dollar amount on the possible benefits." (or, for that matter, a single life ... if saved)?

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?
-- Albert Einstein

 

[Brandon Goforth]

Equally easy to sit there and say "That's a lot of money. Should we spend it when we can't put a quantifiable dollar amount on the possible benefits." (or, for that matter, a single life ... if saved)?

Then at that point it's all subjective then, isn't it? So why does everyone flip out if someone has a different opinion on the matter, or doesn't support it at all?

 

[Jacob Ferden]

Then at that point it's all subjective then, isn't it? So why does everyone flip out if someone has a different opinion on the matter, or doesn't support it at all?

For the same reasons there is so much bad blood during elections. For the same reasons that, a while back, I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm right, you're wrong, any questions?"

 

[Brandon Goforth]

For the same reasons there is so much bad blood during elections. For the same reasons that, a while back, I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "I'm right, you're wrong, any questions?"

Indeed...everyone needs to lighten up then because there is no real right or wrong answer here. I don't owe anyone anything, and no one owes anything to me...end of discussion.

 

[Dustin Wilcox]

As someone who works in a specialized science field and benefits directly from grant as well as tax money. I too hear the gripes about how the research we are doing is a waste of money and does not yield worthwhile results. I also work in a field that poses a far greater potential risk to a much larger number of people than tornadoes ever will. So I see this more from the vortex 2 operation perspective; I personally understand that it takes a lot of dollars and expensive small steps to expand a field scientifically; that being said, often this is taken advantage of, and a lot of wasteful spending can occur if the wrong people are in charge. So as far as the debate on rather Vortex 2 is “worth it” I tend to think so, I personally don’t see it greatly enhancing the lives of everyday people, but in a field such as meteorology enhancement comes slowly and from a vast compilation of data. If all else fails (at this rate seems quite possible), think of it as an economic stimulus, that’s a lot of mouths to feed, a lot of heads to rest, and a lot of tanks to fill.

All that being said, anyone who thinks they have more right to park in a spot I already sit, best fit some special criteria, they best either personally own that spot, have the ability to stop immediate harm from occurring to anyone (if you think radar trucks do, you’re crazy) or they better have bigger arms than mine and not be afraid to use them.

 

[Darren Addy]

You've got a strange definition of "flipping out" and I've got no bad blood here. If one is going to post to a discussion board, one should not be surprised (or threatened) by an ensuing discussion of the points presented.

The problem is that (as I like to say) "words mean things". Brandon's argument is that everything is "subjective". While this may be true in a lot of things, (let's say the beauty of a painting) I don't think it really applies here. I think it would be more accurate to say that the return on investment is not immediately quantifiable.

This is not the kind of science where you can have a control group to see what would have happened if we hadn't known this or that. I can't tell you, for example, how many people would have died in Greensburg, KS if we had saved all of the research money that went into the development of Doppler radar (or a National Weather Service, for that matter.) I can't tell you that a single additional life would have been lost, because we can't go back and run that scenario in the absence of the NWS or Doppler Radar or all the knowledge we now have about tornadogenesis and behavior.

Ignoring the cost of human life for a moment, what kind of price tag do you put on the advancement of knowledge? Experience of all kind tells us that there are practical benefits that come (down the road) from the advancement of knowledge - even knowledge that has no "practical" application on the immediate other side. It is not subjective... it is unquantifiable. Just don't confuse unquantifiable (at this moment) with worthless (or worth less).

Saying everything is "subjective" is like saying everything is "relative". It may be true, but it ultimately says nothing. Sort of like "end of discussion" only more so.