Discovering Why Tornadoes Form

Tornadoes are one of the most violent forms of hazardous weather, causing millions of dollars of damage and loss of life and property every year. However, meteorologists know little about how these fierce twisters begin.

To discover why tornadoes form, undergraduates working in collaboration with scientists at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) have developed a series of high-resolution simulations of supercell thunderstorms.

These models will revolutionize our understanding of how tornadoes form. The simulated data provides a complete picture of the fundamental meteorological variables surrounding the tornadoes.

While advances in radar capabilities and forecasting techniques have dramatically improved tornado prediction, the false alarm rate remains unacceptably high. Better tornado prediction requires greater understanding of the forces that put winds into overdrive.

Because tornadoes are a rare event in nature, this unprecedented set of high-resolution simulations will allow NSSL researchers to study the churning air currents known as tornadic vortices. They are developing and applying advanced data mining models to this data. This unique dataset will also extend our understanding of non-tornadic storms.