Integrated Observations of Convective Weather at Texas Tech University

The Wind Science and Engineering Center at Texas Tech University has a long history of studying convective windstorms. However, the long recurrence interval and limited spatial extent of these damaging storms has prevented the typical fixed observation networks from adequately observing convectively generated phenomena. Even when the observations do occur, they are so widely spaced that detailed spatial data does not resolve the important meso- and microscale features of interest. The synoptic scale observations do not yield temporal resolution of sufficient detail to describe the events time history in much detail.

In order to overcome these difficulties, during the past year, several new sensing platforms have become available to Texas Tech. First, the West Texas Mesonet is beginning to establish a network of mesoscale observation stations across the panhandle of Texas with a station spacing of approximately 50 km. To supplement these fixed observations, mobile mesonet vehicles and portable towers are deployed in order to make finer-scale observations between the fixed mesonet stations. These portable and mobile observations are conducted to observe the convective phenomena where it is occurring, rather than waiting for suitable events to propagate through the more conventional observation network. Traveling relative to the storms movement, observations are made for longer time intervals, and in locations where observations are not routinely made. In addition to these newer observation platforms, National Weather Service remote sensing platforms are used to detail the storm scale environment. This multi-platform analysis provides the authors and other interested collaborators a much clearer idea of the convective systems evolution over time.