TWISTEX fielding: Project end
June 28, 2009 – 4:01 pmToday marks the end of the TWISTEX 2009 program. Although our program runs until the end of the month, a ridge has settled in across the midwest, therefore eliminating any future missions.
June 27th:
Targeted southwest South Dakota for possible severe storms. One isolated storm initiated in Julesburg, Colorado, and the anvil overspread most of Nebraska and southwest portions of South Dakota. Later, several storms initiated along the advancing cold front, thus the tornado potential dropped significantly. Team members followed the line of storms east from Valentine, Nebraska, where straight line winds snapped a power pole about 200 meters in front of the Probe vehicle.
Team stayed in Norfolk, Nebraska for the evening.
Yesterday, June 28:
Advancing cold front through Iowa and veering winds aloft provided little opportunities for operations. Teams returned home.
************
I would like to thank everybody for their efforts this year. We have collected datasets from numerous storms since late April.
A reminder that this is a GROUP project, where it takes several talented scientists, meteorologists, engineers, students, and gifted individuals to conduct a project of this magnitude.
A special thanks to the following participants:
Co-PIs Bruce Lee and Cathy Finley: Bruce and Cathy provided excellent guidance and overview of the new Mobile Mesonet (MM) instrumentation development, and fielding. They were also the field coordinators for the MM placements during operations. Bruce and Cathy piloted M1. These two scientists also provided (and continue to provide) professional ‘peer review’ of all our scientific objectives to ensure that our field measurements meets strict guidelines. This is a very important step so that the collected data is reviewed and eventually accepted within the scientific community.
Matt Grzych: Matt has wrote the new mobile mesonet software that was used for this year. He has spent several hundred hours writing new Labview code for the newly purchased data loggers. Matt also joined us in the field several times in M3.
Tony Laubach: Tony was with the TWISTEX group 100% of the time and provided excellent support driving M3, and was the MM lead when Bruce and Cathy were not able to join us. Certainly Tony kept our spirits high 100% of the time.
Carl Young: Carl was my partner in Probe, and was with our mission nearly 100%. Carl’s assistance with forecasting was fantastic. His cheerful attitude and team spirit is always very much appreciated.
Chris Karstens: Chris’ participation was certainly key for this year. He developed the software scripts for live placements and data of all the MMs in the field over a radar display that was used in the field by all teams. Chris also participated in nearly every mission. Chris was in M2. He also assisted with several hardware items for the MM vehicles, and was always ready to help where ever needed. We all wish him luck as he begins his journey for his PhD.
Ed Grubb: Ed assisted in M3 with Tony. Ed tried his best to keep Tony within ’spec’, but was difficult at times. He was always ready to help with anything-and was great to have aboard.
Jeff Duda: Jeff joined us in the field several times assisting with the duties in M2. His daily enthusiasm was great to have in the field.
Jayson Prentice: Congrats to Jayson and Alyssa for the birth of new son, Braydon James on May 12 of this year. Due to their new ‘cumulus’ addition, Jayson was not able to participate with the fielding this year. Jayson has provided near daily assistance/maintenance for our twistex.org website. Hope you can return next year!
Paul Samaras: Son Paul provided excellent video coverage of most events this year, including the large tornado north of Yankton, South Dakota on June 17th which the team intercepted and collected data buried inside of a large HP storm.
Bill Gallus, Partha Sarkar, and the rest of the participating ISU students: TWISTEX group is very grateful for all of the program support for this year. We look forward to continued collaborations with ISU for the future.
Andres, Brent, and Mike: You guys hung tough with us all year long and was a real pleasure to have aboard. We hope to have the chance to do it again next year.
Lisa Bloch, Bill Howard, Jim Ford, Brian Lovett (and everyone else in the ‘group’): Thanks so much for your support this year. TWISTEX had one of their best years to date, and we hope that our participation was worthwhile for you as well.
I also wish to thank my employers Fred Sandstrom and Joe Smith with Applied Research Associates, Inc., for their support and patience during this fielding. It is very much appreciated. I promise I’ll be ‘back to normal’ ASAP.
Certainly, there are other folks that I haven’t (or likely forgotten) mentioned, of which I appreciate your assistance this year.
Until next year!
Tim Samaras
Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.