All eyes on the storm: Atmospheric Science student studies storm chasers

In 2013, the El Reno tornado in Oklahoma broke records. The monster storm clocked wind speeds topping 300 miles per hour, among the highest ever recorded on Earth. The funnel measured 2.6 miles wide, the widest ever observed.

A crowd of storm chasers converged on the twister, congregating on the storm’s southeast side. Then the tornado took an unexpected – and deadly – turn, putting the storm chasers right in the path of danger.

“At least one group of storm chasers lost their lives in part because of what they call ‘storm chaser convergence.’ If there are too many storm chasers in one area, it slows down traffic like on the interstate,” Alex Moxon explained. “If the tornado switches directions, it can become quite dangerous because all of these people need to get out, now.”

Moxon is majoring in atmospheric science at UWM and plans to graduate in December of 2020. He’s working with distinguished professor of atmospheric science Paul Roebber, and their research focuses on preventing another tragedy like the loss of life in the El Reno tornado.

“We are modeling that storm chaser behavior: How they’re moving in a simulated tornado event,” Moxon said. “What we’re trying to accomplish at the end of the day is seeing if it’s better to have them move in an organized fashion – (where they) have some sort of a central dispatcher – or if it is better for them to make their own decisions.”

Alex Moxon sits in front of a weather map at the Innovative Weather center at UW-Milwaukee. Moxon is studying storm chaser behavior. Photo courtesy of Alex Moxon.

Storm chasers are people who follow tornados when a funnel cloud touches down. Many are atmospheric scientists hoping to gather data like wind speed, barometric pressure, atmospheric conditions, and more. The information they collect helps researchers learn more about “tornadogenesis,” or the development of tornados. Understanding tornadogenesis may help scientists more accurately pinpoint when and where a tornado might form.

In order to determine whether storm chasers might be better served being coordinated by a central dispatcher or by relying on their own instincts and observations, Moxon and Roebber turned to computer modeling. The pair – mostly Roebber, Moxon admits – built a program that predicts the behavior of storm chasers based on their past movements.

Much of their research draws from a paper published in the aftermath of the El Reno tornado. A group of scientists gathered the GPS data and video recordings from the surviving storm chasers who tracked the twister. Using video editing software, data from Google Maps, and GPS data, the scientists were able to plot where each storm chaser was in relation to the tornado.

Based on the paper those scientists published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, as well as other information they’ve gathered about storm chaser movements, Moxon and Roebber were able to feed data into the model so the program could predict how storm chasers might act in a variety of scenarios.

“Now we’ve gotten to a point where the code accurately reflects storm chaser movements,” Moxon said. “Now that we have that, we can go in and examine specific storm events and storm paths, and see how well storm chasers organize themselves and what they could do to organize themselves differently.”

This map shows the path of the 2.5 mile-wide El Reno tornado in Oklahoma in 2013. Map courtesy of www.weather.gov.

They won’t have results for a few months yet, but Moxon can see pros and cons to each approach.

“It’s more difficult for a dispatcher using a radar to see a tornado on the ground versus a storm chaser who is actually there,” Moxon said. “If the storm chasers are able to see that the tornado is turning now, (they can react) before the radar scan comes through and can already be out of harm’s way.

“On the other end, a dispatcher is able to look at the radar much more closely, more scientifically, than what storm chasers get looking at their cell phone. He’s also able to see where the other chasers are and say, okay, there are already 20 of you in this spot. You shouldn’t go here in case this tornado shifts direction.”

Moxon will present his findings at the American Meteorological Society conference in Boston in January, and he and Roebber plan to publish their work as well. Moxon hopes that they will be able to make recommendations to the National Weather Service and emergency managers around the country about best practices for storm chasers.

By Sarah Vickery, College of Letters & Science