April showers may bring May flowers, but it comes with dangerous storms to the state of Alabama keeping an atmospheric sciences team at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) on weekly high alert. They were at the Severe Weather Institute Radar and Lightning Laboratories (SWIRLL) yesterday traveling to Montgomery to monitor storms throughout Alabama today and tomorrow.
The team is composed of Dr. Kevin Knupp, a professor of atmospheric science, research associate Preston Pangle, and nine undergraduate and graduate students. The team was prepping to roll for data acquisition under the Propagation, Evolution and Rotation in Linear Storms (PERiLS) program. The research is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Science Foundation. This year’s PERiLS spring campaign ends April 30.
Their fleet consists of up to eight trucks bristling with radar, sensing and data acquisition equipment but this week six of them rolled into Montgomery to be set up and be ready to go today and tomorrow.
Setting up from UAH will be the Mobile Alabama X-band radar (MAX), Mobile Integrated Profiling System (MIPS) and the Rapidly Deployable Atmospheric Profiling System (RaDAPS). Collectively they are known as the Mobile Atmospheric Profiling Network (MAPNet).
The University of Oklahoma, the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the University of Illinois are also contributing radars. Profiling systems are being contributed by the University of Louisiana at Monroe and the National Severe Storms Laboratory. Texas Tech University, the University of Illinois and Purdue University are deploying surface stations, the National Severe Storms Laboratory is contributing a portable lightning mapping array, and all the research organizations plus North Carolina State University will be flying weather balloons.
The 11-member UAH team and other involved universities will be on the hunt for anything Mother Nature tosses their way, but they are particularly looking for tornadoes.
Knupp said the primary target is tornadoes produced by squall-line systems in the area south of Huntsville. The area from Birmingham extending farther south across Alabama will be under enhanced risk of supercell storms today.
“They’re under an enhanced risk for severe weather in that area,” said Dr. Knupp. “When that happens, we roll out as quickly as possible.
“This is a pretty big project involving up to 75 people in the field,” Knupp added.
The Huntsville region is only at a slight risk of severe weather today, which is why the UAH team is basically emptying the garage and bringing everything they have to the hot spot.
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