Storm chasers get a close look at a supercell thunderstorm near Big Spring, Texas, in May 2008. This year the trip is a tuition-paid field study course for all the students on board.

Photos by The Roanoke Times

File 2008 Andrew Smith (from left), Dave Carroll and Sandy LaCorte look over weather data during Virginia Tech's 2008 storm chase.

Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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Virginia has three National Weather Service offices, but no colleges that offer a bachelor's degree in meteorology.

The National Weather Service office in Blacksburg is within smelling distance of Lane Stadium tailgating, but Virginia Tech has offered only a few meteorology classes over the years.

Bill Carstensen, chairman of the geography department at Tech, wants to change that. The upcoming storm-chasing trip is a step toward a meteorology major being offered at Tech.

For the fifth straight year, I'm going along with the storm-chasing team led by Virginia Tech meteorology instructor Dave Carroll. We are scheduled to leave next week (day to be determined by the weather pattern) with a total of 16 people in three vehicles, headed for the Great Plains states. I will be serving as a volunteer co-leader on the trip, slated to last about two weeks. You can follow us on my Weather Journal blog on roanoke.com.

Virgina Tech took its first step toward offering a degree in meteorology last summer when it hired Carroll as a full-time instructor of meteorology. Carroll was among the first winners of the McGlothlin Award for Teaching Excellence for his meteorology instruction at Pulaski County High School, the centerpiece of which was an annual trip to the central United States to observe and track severe storms in the open terrain of "Tornado Alley."

Many students of Tech and other universities -- most notably the University of North Carolina at Asheville, which has its own thriving meteorology degree program -- joined high schoolers on Carroll's storm-chasing adventure through the years, some gaining college credit. But this is the first time the storm-chasing trip is being offered by Tech as a full-fledged field study course, with the entire 12-member student contingent hailing from Tech.

"The geography faculty in 2007 voted to add a new requirement for three hours of field experiences to our major check sheets," Carstensen said. "This requirement assures that each student participate in a geographically based activity outside of the classroom so they can put their classroom learning to work in the field. ... The storm chase is another offering that affirms our belief that this is an important element of education."

Obviously, with an economic downturn and tight public funding budgets, launching a new major has its challenges right now. But Tech has secured Carroll's funding for at least three years, and in time wants to hire one or two doctorate-holding professors to teach upper-level research courses, Carstensen said.

Carstensen expects Tech's program to be able to cut out its own unique niche in meteorological study.

"Our department has long been known for its Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing programs," Carstensen said. "Meteorology has moved toward those areas of late, but most of the long-term programs around the country do not have geospatial technology as a major component of the program."

There is already interest, Carstensen said.

"I have had a half-dozen inquiries about the possible program without any official word being sent out at all," he said. " I also have a lot of current majors who have asked about it, and many at present who are doing the full range of our current offerings."

Weather Journal appears on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.