For ten days this summer, twelve members of the student organization PSU Storm Chase traveled the country in search of severe weather—covering 5,700 miles and 16 states in only 10 days.
In the middle of a wide open plain in the panhandle of Oklahoma, Penn State student Brad Guay squints as he peers at clouds several miles in the distance. If the rotation is just right and a cloud walls starts protruding downward, it will mean that the 500-some miles he and 11 other Penn State students drove that morning will not have been in vain. If they witness a tornado, their day was a success.
For ten days this summer, Guay and 11 other members of the student organization PSU Storm Chase traveled the country in search of severe weather—covering 5,700 miles and 16 states in only 10 days.
The trip was not for entertainment, but rather, it served as a way to apply forecasting techniques they had learned in their meteorology courses.
“Storm chasing is all about using our forecasting skills to be able to find storms. It’s learning how to forecast better. And it’s also seeing concepts from meteorology textbooks come to life when watching storm develop. You can see a vortex tilting, and other concepts we learn about in class,” says Guay, who is president of PSU Storm Chase.
Safety first
Even though weather can change drastically in the span of a few hours, the club spends months planning for their journey. The club regularly gets feedback from their adviser, Bill Syrett, TITLE, and to prepare for storm season in the summer and their annual chase trip, they bring experienced storm chasers in for guest speakers—such as Matt Kumjian, [TITLE], Yvette Richardson, [TITLE], and Paul Markowski, [TITLE].
“What we typically focus on is the dos and don’ts of storm chasing, and how to be safe. Sometimes there are little tips we try to give, like the driver should never look at the sky, because being distracted is not a safe way to drive. I’ve been really impressed with PSU Storm Chase’s level of conscientiousness and dedication to being responsible,” says Markowski.
Escape routes top the list of “must haves” for storm chasing, says Faith Eherts, a senior majoring in meteorology who participated in the chase this summer.
“There aren’t always a lot of roads where storms hit, so you have to plan your escape routes well. We always make sure that wherever we’re going, we have a route east, south, north, and west,” she says.
That careful planning ensures that the students can stay out of harm’s way while still being able to see some of nature’s most beautiful meteorological phenomena.
Staying one step ahead of the storm
While the students spend months in advance discussing overall safety and general best practice, the real crunch work for forecasting storms can only happen a day or two in advance of their trip.
“The forecasting process usually starts the day before. We look at computer weather models that simulate the atmosphere ahead of time,” says Guay.
In their day-before research, the club tries to identify instability in the atmosphere—winds changing direction with height (known as wind shear), which is a hallmark sign of tornadoes. Mix this with an initiating force such as a cold front, and you have a tornado or other severe storm. It’s a delicate balance, and what’s known as a “Goldilocks problem” in science, says Markowski.
“You need to have downdrafts because these are the airstreams that bring rotation to the ground, but if you have too much cold air, that disrupts the tornado process,” he says.
Given the fragility of the storm creation process, the students’ planning can change quickly, sometimes even in a few hours.
“Our goal is always to spend the night nearby where we think storms will develop, so we can wake up and chase. But sometimes you wake up six hours before you think a storm will hit, and you see that things have shifted. On one day, we camped in eastern Colorado, expecting to go to Kansas, but then we saw there was rain over Kansas that kept temperatures down. So we decided to head to southwest Oklahoma instead, where the weather was destabilizing,” says Guay.
Gaining experience with a different kind of forecasting
Because a storm may only be visible for a few minutes, it’s crucial that the students apply everything they know to be in the right spot at the right time.
Tracking storms brought the students across many states — in the 10 days they spent, the students had 4 good chase days: in northwest Ohio, in western Nebraska, in southwest Oklahoma and in southwest Texas. This tracking requires a different kind of forecasting, and for students interested in a career in operational forecasting, like Eherts, storm chasing is valuable experience.
“One of the courses we take is synoptic meteorology, which is the big picture of how weather changes—how low pressure systems move across the globe. But storm chasing is a lot more small scale. It’s really picking a single town where you think a storm will pop up,” says Eherts.
Eherts is interested in a career in operational air quality, and this storm chase opportunity—along with internships with the National Weather Service and Penn State’s Air Quality Forecast Lab—is helping her prepare.
Markowski, who has years of experience with chasing storms, says that just seeing storms in person is an educational experience.
“Meteorology is a major in which students study part of the earth’s system. As educators, we often talk about the importance of hands-on learning and hands-on discovery, and being out in the field chasing storms is part of that.”
It’s not just about storms, either. Sometimes just seeing a variety of weather develop across the country is an experience in itself.
“The coolest part about the trip for me,” says Eherts, “was being able to see the variety of weather. In Pennsylvania, it’s not often that we can chase storms, but in a 10 day span, we saw a supercellular tornado, softball-sized hail and other unique environments for weather.”
