Weather Station

Chasing a Storm

by Lindsey Michaels

Bring on the lightning. Bring on the thunder. Let the rain pour down in sheets. There will always be plenty of time for golf and picnics and hiking on some other day in sunny Arizona.

"Stormchasers" at Arizona State University are always happy to see the signs of bad weather. Just like the stormchasers featured in the movie Twister, this group of ASU meteorology and climatology students spend their time in search of rough weather. Their work helps to gather data for the Arizona Thunderstorm Chase Project (AZTC).

The AZTC serves as a pair of eyes for the National Weather Service (NWS) and gives ASU students a chance to work with weather recording equipment in a real-world setting.

The very first stormchasers were not nearly as well equipped. The only electronic equipment they carried were radios. They used the radios to relay information to the NWS and verify severe weather warnings.

Today's stormchasers use a mobile, computerized weather station. This weather station fits inside the van that the chase team drives to storm sites.

"We can measure everything that is measured at Sky Harbor Airport: temperature; pressure; humidity; wind speed and direction; rainfall; and rainfall intensity," explains Randy Cerveny, professor of geography at ASU.

The data collected by ASU's stormchasers helps build a database of information about monsoon storms. Cerveny says that people only started studying the monsoon less than 10 years ago. From a scientific standpoint, not much is really known about this Arizona weather pattern.

The group goes out on days when thunderstorms appear likely. Even if a thunderstorm doesn't happen, the data that stormchasers do collect is valuable. Later analysis might reveal why there was no thunderstorm that day. This information could help meteorologists accurately predict storms in the future.

"We don't have very much information on what makes a wet monsoon or a dry monsoon or why there is a difference," Cerveny says.

The ASU team also sends their information to a SWAMP in Oklahoma! The Southwest Area Monsoon Project (SWAMP) is an international project run by the Severe Storms Laboratory at the University of Oklahoma.

Cerveny advises students to leave stormchasing to the professionals. All of ASU's stormchasers complete two months of safety training. If there is lightning too close to where the stormchasers have set up, they'll shut down their computer equipment and gather information the old-fashioned way—by using their eyes.

Despite the dangerous aspects of their work, ASU's stormchasers love it when huge storms roll into the Valley of the Sun. They are probably the only people happy to see bad weather.