Hello to all severe weather-enthusiasts and Twister fans!
We're currently about 4.5 hours into SWIFT 2021 and so far, things are going swimmingly! Due to COVID, the majority of members in our group were slated to go out last year for SWIFT 2020, but even though it's a bummer that was not able to happen, it gave me a chance to finally join the internship--which is something that I've known about and wanted to be a part of even before coming to USNA.
Speaking of me, I am a rising 1/C and oceanography major, on the swim team, and originally from Albuquerque, NM, who's had a lifelong interest in all things weather. Growing up in the high desert, summers were always accented by incredible, but short-lived, afternoon monsoons. I'd sit on the porch with our family dog and watch these forces of nature develop on the horizon, grow and balloon into massive cumulus clouds, before releasing all that energy onto the desert below. There's just something humbling about being powerless in the face of a storm as it rolls across an open horizon.
Despite it all, I've never seen a tornado--though hopefully that will change within the next 2 weeks. In fact, based on the SPC convective outlook, that wish may be granted within the next couple days...so stay tuned to see how things develop...
No matter what happens with the weather during this internship, I cannot express how excited I am to be with this group of people as we traverse the country in pursuit of our own twister(s). Simply the act of storm chasing and being able to apply the knowledge we've learned in the classroom is a reward in and of itself. Gosh, I keep remembering reading National Geographic magazines and thinking how amazing it would be to be a storm chaser. How fulfilling to apply mathematics and theory and experience, and predict when and where a tornado would develop.
And now look where we are :)
In the best way, I hope that our skies are nor fair, nor our winds calm.
Sara
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