Erin Maher Tornado Camp 2018

Tornado Camp Essay

by Erin Maher

To be completely honest, I didn’t know much about Tornado Camp until an email about the upcoming application deadline arrived in my inbox. I researched the opportunity and was immediately intrigued, and, when I was chosen to be a part of this year’s team, I was absolutely thrilled! Having just finished my sophomore year as a climate major, I didn’t have a very strong background related to forecasting or severe storms. I was excited to begin learning about these skills through the journeys of Tornado Camp.

Our trek down to Lubbock began on my birthday, and, after a day in the car, we celebrated by exploring St. Louis, Missouri. We made a couple of other stops on the way to our final destination, including a hike in Taum Sauk State Park in Missouri and a night in Moore, Oklahoma. After three days of travel, we finally arrived in Lubbock, Texas.

The first order of business in Lubbock was meeting the Texas Tech team for the first time. During this initial meeting, we went over the many facets and moving parts (such as RC planes) of the project in which we would be participating. The project was part of the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) and was a joint venture between Texas Tech (TTU), University of Nebraska Lincoln (UNL), and University of Colorado (CU). The meeting ended with plans for a team lunch the next day, as well as an invitation to one of the member’s Memorial Day party.

We had a few days in Lubbock before the beginning of the NRI project. We spent this time exploring the TTU campus, outfitting our van (which was named “Gina”) with a radio, and going to Caprock Canyon. We were looking forward to attending the Memorial Day party, but the team decided to leave a few days early for the project, as the models predicted activity in western Kansas and eastern Colorado.

Our first night in Kansas proved to be very eventful: a supercell was forming right near the restaurant we were dining at, so we had the opportunity to investigate. As we were taking pictures from a distance, a severe thunderstorm warning was issued. The entire team jumped into the vehicles and set off on an impromptu chase. For Karlie, Brandon, and me, this was the first time we had chased a storm. We were grateful to have Austin with us, as he had participated in last year’s Tornado Camp and therefore had experience to offer. The storm was astonishing and looked like something out of a textbook - it was an incredible first chase! Sadly, one of the TTU radar trucks got stuck on a dirt road, and we had to abandon the chase. Luckily, many more chances to chase storms followed our first, including one that led us to the witness the spectacle that was a pair of landspouts.

More travelling was required to meet up with UNL and CU in Nebraska. We were excited to meet the rest of “The Armada” – a name we gave ourselves due to the vastness of our numbers. We became friends with many of the UNL students fairly quickly due to connections they had to TTU students and some fun (but fiercely competitive) card games. It was a joy to talk to them about their experiences with storms and learn about their program at UNL. Later in the trip, we also had the pleasure of becoming friends with a group of undergrads from CU. They were an interesting group; most of them were aerospace engineers, and were the responsible for the previously-mentioned RC planes used in the project. Until speaking with the CU team, I didn’t realize how truly interdisciplinary storm chasing and research was.

Every morning before we left to pursue the day’s target, we had a team-wide forecasting discussion. This usually consisted of discussing models and looking at the “ingredients” for supercells and tornadoes. In the beginning of Tornado Camp, this was the part of the day where I felt the most out of place. However, through discussions with my fellow Michigan students and the TTU crew, I began to feel more comfortable. I am so grateful for the time that the TTU team, especially Chris and Cameron, took teaching us and answering questions. Chris was the first to invite us to a late-night forecasting discussion, and made an effort to have each of us play a part in it, rather than just acting as spectators. Cameron was always willing to answer any question; he spent over an hour with Karlie, Brandon, and I as we combed through his forecasting procedure and each made our own predictions. Through the support of the Michigan and TTU teams, I started to feel confident in my abilities.

The team from Texas Tech were more than just teachers; after the long hours we spent with them, they became good friends. There were a lot of team dinners, games of cards, and laughter prompted by various jokes and Vine references. Combined with the team from Michigan, I couldn’t have asked for a better group with to chase storms and explore the country with. Because we had some down time, we were able to see some incredible sites. We visited Mount Rushmore, went hiking in the Black Hills, and explored the Badlands. It was extraordinary seeing new parts of the country that I may never have seen otherwise.

Although I learned an incredible amount about severe storms and forecasting, Tornado Camp also gifted me with learning opportunities outside of the bounds of my climate education. First and foremost, I discovered a lot about living in close proximity with the same group for an extended period of time. Living together, out of a car, for a month, required all of us to be considerate of others and respectful of our teammates’ boundaries. Also, throughout our time on the road, we met many different people from many different places. Through interacting with these people, I was able to get a small glimpse into what it was like to live in many different parts of the country.

During a chase in Oklahoma, we were able to speak to a family that owned and operated a farm. They had experienced many tornadoes and talked about them as if they weren’t a big deal. Having grown up in Connecticut, tornadoes were, to me, terrifying anomalies; it was extremely eye-opening to consider these forces of nature from a point of view different than my own. Additionally, we met an incredibly kind couple in North Dakota that invited the entire NRI team to a barbeque. Their generosity was astounding - all they asked in return for their hospitality was a picture with the team in front of the TTU radar trucks.

Tornado Camp was an absolutely incredible experience. Through these action packed, exciting weeks, I gained valuable knowledge about forecasting and had the opportunity to learn more about our country and the people that live in it. I am so lucky to have had this experience and would recommend it to any other CLaSP student!