Storm Chasing Science

Storm chasers are often scientists gathering data that fixed stations cannot capture. The VORTEX projects deployed armored vehicles and instrument pods directly in tornado paths to measure conditions inside.

Modern chasers carry mobile Doppler radar that scans a tornado's structure in real time. It revealed that the strongest winds sit in a narrow ring just outside the visible funnel, not at its center. Drones are pushing further still — in 2019, a team flew a purpose-built drone into a supercell, gathering data from inside the storm with far less risk than driving in.