Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Weather columnist Kevin Myatt: Blacksburg grad to help in tornado project
Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.
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A Blacksburg High School graduate is among about 100 scientists taking part in an extensive project to research tornadoes in the Great Plains over the next five weeks.
Jacob Carley, a 2004 Blacksburg graduate who received a meteorology degree at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and is in graduate studies at Purdue University, will be onboard one of 10 mobile radar vehicles in the VORTEX2 tornado research project.
VORTEX2 includes about 40 vehicles, according to the project's Web site. The goal will be to position the vehicles, instruments and probes around a single tornadic thunderstorm to collect data on the storm's development and operation. VORTEX2 started Sunday and runs through mid-June.
VORTEX stands for Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment. The original VORTEX operated in 1994 and 1995. Plans are under way for VORTEX2 to continue in the spring of 2010.
Carley participated in the storm-chasing trip led by Virginia Tech meteorology instructor Dave Carroll, formerly a Pulaski County High School teacher, in both 2005 and 2006. I have been onboard that trip each year from 2005 to 2008. We plan to return to the Plains with a 16-member Virginia Tech storm-chasing team for two weeks starting Sunday.
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