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Hello everyone!

My name is April Vogt, and I am a 24 year old undergraduate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. I have been working on an ongoing project revolving around tornado predicting. As of this year, I devised a hypothesis correlated around years of research that may be able to predict the touch down zone and path of a tornado. With this, I devised a project entitled "The `Lo`Lo Project" where I plan to conduct experiments to either support/disprove my hypothesis. After speaking with people who have experience in the field of meteorology, and a few in tornado research, I have been supported and given more sources to analyze that are yet to disprove my idea. 

I just started a website discussing the project. Some portions (such as the research and experiment portions) are not fully complete (they are informational for one learning about the project). I am continuing to expand this site and am hoping to have it completed in the next week. Please let me know what you think, I am excited to respond to questions/comments/concerns. Also if you have facebook please like us as well. 

Look forward to your response (:

April V
Website: http://loloproject.weebly.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theloloproject

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It's been well known in the meteorology community for years that tornadoes and supercells in general like to form and ride along boundaries. Boundaries themselves by definition have lower pressures because of lift (ex. convergence) or thermodynamic changes (ex. convection initiation).

 

So, Question: With your "project" are you looking at mainly mesoscale (county/state) pressure falls or microscale (storm-scale) pressure falls? Perhaps some people on here can point in you the right direction on some literature.

 

Just as a note, I want to caution that I don't believe that you'll be "able to predict the touch down zone and path of a tornado" using this method alone (I'd love you to prove me wrong!). Overall though, I think this is a good "project" for an undergrad starting in meteorology and I hope someone here who has more knowledge of the literature here can point you in a starting direction.

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Let's say you're correct about the predictive ability.  Isn't there a huge logistical problem with this?  Wouldn't you need a super dense observation network on the ground to pick up on small pressure differences from one location to the next?

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Since it seems like you're basing much of your hypothesis on pressure trends from that station in El Reno... are you sure you can't simply attribute the gradual pressure drop to the approaching synoptic storm system?

The gradual pressure decline is almost certainly entirely from the developing and strengthening low pressure system over southwestern Kansas that day. The significant drop is entirely from the tornado impacting the ELRE site.

Let's say you're correct about the predictive ability. Isn't there a huge logistical problem with this? Wouldn't you need a super dense observation network on the ground to pick up on small pressure differences from one location to the next?

And while she mentions storm chasers having atmospheric sensors that measure the variables she is looking for, in my experience, most chasers don't. If most chasers did, they would not be the type of sensor to report consistent accurate information. These chasers would also have to work in unison with each other (and in conjunction with a high density ground network) to provide this data.

I'm not saying it is a bad idea (and I am sure the VORTEX groups at least considered this) but there is low feasibility that this would work.

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