Transcript from VORTEX Interview with Erik Rasmussen, project directorI'm Erik Rasmussen with NOAA's National Severe Storms Laboratory and I'm the director of the VORTEX Experiment. "What are the scientific objectives of VORTEX?" I'd say the primary scientific objective of our experiment is to try to understand what causes tornadoes to form below supercell storms. "How does this differ from earlier experiments?" Well, earlier experiments lacked, uh, in general, lacked the tight focus, of course, that VORTEX has. In this experiment we're focusing just on tornado formation and we're focusing all of our resources on any given day just on that particular scientific question. Another thing that's different about VORTEX is that we've developed a suite of sensors on vehicles that we can deploy on a thunderstorm. "And, uh, VORTEX is a two-part experiment. This is the..." This is the second year of VORTEX. Last season was our first. We saw a number of tornadic and non-tornadic storms. This year we'll be through on June 15th. The experiment will end. "And although the experiment ends on June 15th, we can expect to see published peer-reviewed scientific results of this over the next several years?" The informal findings of VORTEX will work their into National Weather Service operations quite quickly, maybe over the next two or three years. Uh, the other more significant results of VORTEX will work their way through the scientifically reviewed, peer-reviewed literature over the next, say, five- to seven years. "And what are the benefits to the public of VORTEX?" I think, uh, one of the primary VORTEX – one of the primary benefits that VORTEX will have to the general public is that we should be able to significantly improve tornado warnings. And the reason I say that is our 88-D Doppler radar that the Weather Service is deploying sees very well into the mid-level part of the storm, but because the earth curves and the radar beam doesn't, no radar can see the region right near the ground once you get out at some range from the radar. Uh, I think VORTEX will give us a clear physical understanding of what's going on in that region below the radar beam that the radar can't see, and so the meteorologists can use what they do see on the radar to deduce what's going on at the ground. "Is it fair to say that we, we hope in fact that VORTEX will revolutionize our understanding of tornadoes?" I think it's safe to say that VORTEX is going to revolutionize our understanding of tornadoes. I think just based on the preliminary results of 1994 we have a much better understanding of what causes tornado formation than we did a year ago. "Good luck." Thanks. Updated May 2001 |