NCSU launches on a severe supercell day

The NSSL2 team fills the balloon:



Matt Morin and Kate Rojowsky, ready for launch:



One of the many large hailstones found on the ground in the wake of the target storm (probably had been melting for 20 minutes or more!):

posted by Matt Parker

VORTEX2 Intercepts Its First Tornado (Posted By David Stark)

On Friday June 5, 2009, The VORTEX2 team intercepted a tornadic supercell near La Grange, Wyoming. The MGUAS teams launched balloons around the storm to observe its inflow environment, forward flank baroclinicity, and rear flank environment. Thankfully, the tornado did not harm anything other than a few trees and several fences. That does make trying to figure out how strong the tornado was more difficult. The National Weather Service did a damage SURVEY and rated it an EF-1 pending data from V2. The Doppler on Wheels data needs to be analzyed further, but it is possible the wind speeds were stronger than what the NWS saw from the little damage the tornado caused. Below are two photos that I took during the intercept. My sounding truck was located approximately 10-15 miles from the tornado.

NSSL2 Hits Dime to Nickel-Sized Hail (Posted By David Stark)

On Thursday, June 4, NSSL2, the sounding truck that I deploy in, ran into lots of hail along Interstate 80 along the Nebraska, Wyoming border. We pulled over to the side of the road until the hail let up and we were able to witness a fascinating rainbow right in front of us. Take a look!

Recent Student TV Interview (posted by Casey Letkewicz)

One of the consequences in taking part in a huge project like VORTEX2 is the constant media presence, not only by large stations like the Weather Channel but also the smaller, local stations. Yesterday in Hebron, Nebraska I (Casey Letkewicz) was stopped by a reporter from Lincoln who wanted an interview since V2 was in Nebraska yesterday and for a few days before. It was a pretty basic interview. They wanted to know why we were in Nebraska, what the goals of V2 are, and they also wanted to know a little bit about our mobile soundings team. Here's the link to the story on their website, including video: http://www.kolnkgin.com/home/headlines/46677602.html

One of the guys I was with was also snapped a picture of the interview (props goes to Mike Daniels from EOL for the image):