Observations of tornadogenesis using the MWR-05XP, a mobile, phased-array, X-band, Doppler radar

A mobile, X-band, phased-array Doppler radar acquired from the U. S. Army by the Center for Interdisciplinary Remotely Piloted Aircraft Studies (CIRPAS) at the Naval Postgraduate School and adapted for meteorological use by ProSensing, Inc., collected volumetric (to 200 elevation angle), oversampled in azimuth and range, Doppler data in a number of tornadic supercells in 2008 in the Southern Plains. The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate the effectiveness of this radar in capturing tornadogenesis with a rapid volume update. Data depicting the entire life cycle (~40 min) of a tornado and data depicting the complete life cycle of an anticyclonic vortex of tornadic intensity that rotated partly around a companion, mature, more intense, cyclonic tornado, will be highlighted. These data were collected with update times of 13 s. This radar will be used during VORTEX-2 in the spring of 2009, and data with volumetric update times of 6 s will be collected. Any significant data collected during VORTEX-2 may also be shown briefly.