Doppler On Wheels
Encyclopedia
Joshua Wurman
Joshua Michael Aaron Ryder Wurman is an atmospheric scientist and inventor noted for tornado, hurricane, and weather radar research.-Life and career:Wurman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended Radnor High School...
, with the funding mainly provided by the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
. The project consists of three trucks mounted with doppler weather radar dishes, a support vehicle, and three instrumented SUV/Pickups which deploy instrumented pods in tornadoes and hurricanes. The DOW mobile radar networks has recently been made an NSF National Facility available for use by NSF-funded researchers and others.
The goal of the DOWs to collect as much detailed information on severe and other weather as possible using the mobile Doppler vehicles. DOWs have observed 141 tornadoes at close range, and intercepted the eyes of 11 hurricanes (most recently Ike and Gustav in 2008). DOW data led to the discovery of sub-kilometer hurricane boundary layer rolls, which likely modulate wind damage and may play a key role in hurricane intensification. DOW data revealed the most intense winds ever recorded (Bridgecreek, 3 May 1999), and the largest tornadic circulation ever documented (also 3 May 1999 in Mulhall, OK).
One DOW has recently been used by the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
's reality television series Storm Chasers
Storm Chasers (TV series)
Storm Chasers is a weekly American documentary reality television series that premiered on October 17, 2007 on the Discovery Channel. Produced by Original Media, the program follows several teams of storm chasers as they attempt to intercept tornadoes in Tornado Alley in the United States...
, National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel
National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...
's television specials Tornado Intercept and The True Face of Hurricanes, and PBS
Public Broadcast Service
The Public Broadcast Service is a government-owned educational radio and television broadcast service located in Barbados. Public Broadcast Service owns a radio station, 91.1FM and its television programming will be introduced in 2009....
's Nova episode "The Hunt For The Supertwister," and others. The DOW trucks are based out of Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
. The DOW fleet consists of the DOW6, DOW7, and multi-beam Rapid-Scan DOW. DOWs have participated in over 20 field programs including VORTEX, VORTEX 2, COPS (Germany/France), MAP (Italy/Switzerland), JAWS-Juneau(Alaska), PAMREX, FLATLAND, CR1, ROTATE, and CALJET, and will be core instrumentation in the upcoming VORTEX2 tornado study.
See also
- Storm chasingStorm chasingStorm chasing is broadly defined as the pursuit of any severe weather condition, regardless of motive, which can be curiosity, adventure, scientific exploration or for news professions/media coverage....
- Tornado Intercept VehicleTornado Intercept Vehicle-The TIV 2:Casey and his team developed and built the second Tornado Intercept Vehicle, dubbed "TIV 2", to be featured in their next IMAX movie and the Storm Chasers series. Work began in September 2007 by 40 welding students at the Great Plains Technology Center in Lawton, Oklahoma and was...
(TIV) - Joshua WurmanJoshua WurmanJoshua Michael Aaron Ryder Wurman is an atmospheric scientist and inventor noted for tornado, hurricane, and weather radar research.-Life and career:Wurman was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attended Radnor High School...
- VORTEX2
- Storm ChasersStorm Chasers (TV series)Storm Chasers is a weekly American documentary reality television series that premiered on October 17, 2007 on the Discovery Channel. Produced by Original Media, the program follows several teams of storm chasers as they attempt to intercept tornadoes in Tornado Alley in the United States...
- List of Storm Chasers episodes