It’s raining on the day weather researchers converge in Memphis from all up and down the Mississippi Valley to hold a press conference.
Millions of dollars of high tech equipment are getting wet in the Agricenter parking lot.
But then, that's a big part of the plan.
“You’re walking through an array of mobile radars that we’re using for the PERiLS Project,” says Dr. Karen Kosiba, the National Science Foundation’s principal investigator on this campaign. "These radars are going to be out there studying storms and storm structure."
Over the next three months about 50 to 60 researchers will be hauling truckloads of equipment across the Southeast.
“And we’re going to be putting all these instruments ahead of these storms trying to get this type of data,” she says.
The PERiLS Project stands for Propagation, Evolution and Rotation in Linear Storms. It’s a $12 million, two-year study funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
It's also unprecedented in the amount of data being collected.
“One of the things we’re looking for is the environment ahead of these storms; how small changes in the environment influence the storms,” Kosiba says.
Perhaps most importantly, the data will provide more insight into how tornados -- specifically Southern-style tornados -- are born.
Every spring, the Southeastern U.S. is raked by massive storm systems traveling west to east. Some of these squall lines produce tornadoes. But unlike the more predictable systems that assail the western U.S., these tornados can be harder to forecast.
Along with being more spontaneous and wide-ranging, they also frequently happen at night. The South is also more vulnerable to damage, with its denser population and many people living in mobile or pre-fab homes.
Researchers from multiple agencies and universities are now in the second year data collection. Melissa Wagner, who works with the National Severe Storm Laboratory, flies drones over disaster areas, using multi-spectral cameras to assess different types of impact.
“And it lets us look at damage that is not otherwise visible to the human eye,” she says.
Each piece of information could help predict and get warnings out ahead of the next major catastrophe, like the so-called “Super Outbreak of 2011.”
Between April 25-28, a confirmed 360 tornados ravaged cities and towns from Texas to New York. The final cost: $12 billion and well over 300 lives.
Ryan Wade, a scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville offers a tour of the same truck he was in when the storm hit. It’s an ambulance converted into a mobile weather command center.
“We’ve had this in 100-120 mile an hour winds before,” Wade says.
It’s towing a trailer full of radars, lasers, even something that measures the exact size of raindrops. Which is why the instruments need to be right under those squall lines.
“We’re able to detect things that you can’t from a radar that’s 40-50-60 miles away,” Wade says.
He says this micro-data could help the National Weather Service more accurately predict where tornadoes could pop up in a chain of storms that stretches for hundreds of miles.
And ultimately, that could give people more time to get to safety.
