Vianco: Closing Thoughts

Where to begin?

    I suppose I'll start with what I expected going into this internship. Firstly, as someone who, perhaps, didn't fully understand how rare and dynamically sensitive tornados are, I assumed that if the models and atmospheric parameters looked favorable, they would be popping up everywhere they could.

    However, looking back across SWIFT and across the numerous days where it seems as though we should've been able to observe a plethora of funnels and touchdowns, I learned that the science behind severe storms is still incomplete. There are a variety of possible factors that may or may not affect the formation of a tornado, and even though, broadly, the atmosphere looks favorable, some small factor, be it a layer of slightly warmer air aloft, or the presence of a convergent boundary, or the magnitude of precipitation, all have the potential to locally affect the thermodynamics of the atmosphere and encourage or fail to encourage the development of a tornado. 

    For example, the supercell below had visually powerful mid-level rotation, a healthy updraft, a textbook forward-flank downdraft, and a supporting environment. However, for whatever reason, the surface level vorticity that was present was unable to be stretched into a tornado. Whether is was the presence of a cold pool, or some other thermodynamic parameter that we were unable to account for, nonetheless, a tornado did not appear.

A lovely supercell 

           That being said, it was incredible to watch the theories and mathematics that we learned throughout the major's courses come alive in these supercells. Being able to see the rotating air in a wall cloud, seeing the forces actually affect the movement of the storms, or being able to relate equations to the storms' behaviors was truly the most impactful outcome of this internship. 

    At the same time, it was made abundantly clear that even though we have these equations and explanations, we make a decent amount of assumptions in their derivations, and we still don't fully understand why tornados occur in certain supercells and not in others. For us, there were a few days where we looked at the available products, forecasts, and discussions and fully expected to see a tornado in Our Storm that we were chasing. However, I learned that forecasting tornados is not an exact science, and while we were able to hypothesize about where one might be, the fluidity and constant perturbations in the atmosphere play a far greater role in their conception.

Advancing storm + wall cloud with a veiled tornado (?)

    

    Nonetheless, this internship was likely one of the most important experiences for my future career in atmospheric science, while also providing invaluable leadership opportunities. 

    However, one of the most rewarding and enjoyable aspects of the internship was definitely the connections that my classmates and myself were able to foster and develop. Which was incredibly fortunate, actually, when you consider that we spent most of our time together in a van...

Aesthetically pleasing rain

Thanks for following along, 

Sara