NOAA 'Hurricane Hunter' supports tornado study

May 14, 2019

One of NOAA's Lockheed WP-3D Orion aircraft is supporting a project to better understand the relationships between severe thunderstorms and tornado formation. The more than 50 researchers and students involved in the study are deploying a wide variety of tools, including the NOAA P-3 aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, and ground-based observation systems, to collect data on supercell thunderstorms across the Great Plains during 2019 and 2020. The goal of the TORUS project, or Targeted Observation by Radars and UAS of Supercells, is to use data collected to improve conceptual models of supercell thunderstorms. Project objectives include measuring and observing the frequency of changes in the atmosphere and relationships between the different atmospheric boundary layers.