Nebraska, because of its location near the center of the continental 48 states and the heart of the Great Plains, experiences a wide variety of weather ranging from winter blizzards to spring and summer tornadoes. Our location provides an ideal opportunity to conduct field-oriented severe storms research. Recent cold season research by faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students includes an examination of the diurnal variation in snowstorm intensity, the climatology of heavy snowfalls, and a study of the mechanisms responsible for major snowstorm occurrences in the Great Plains. Warm season research has examined methods of better forecasting squall line genesis and movement, the variation in hail frequency in the Great Plains, spatial and temporal variations in tornado occurrences, and the role of atmospheric boundary zones in tornado genesis.
Field research is conducted in association with a special group organized and coordinated by meteorology students, "The Nebraska Vortex Intercept Team" (NEVIT). Using a series of instruments, students and professors travel for several weeks throughout the Great Plains intercepting severe storms in order to examine storm initiation and storm structure and to photograph the various elements of severe weather (including lightning, hail storms, flash flooding, and tornadoes). While storm chasing, the NEVIT group provides storm information to the various NWS offices and assists them in the issuing of storm warnings. Photographs and storm reports are placed at the HPRCC website for others to see and learn more about the severe weather in our region. We also work with the Lancaster County Emergency Management Office at the 911/Emergency Operations Center to provide now-casting during severe weather events. And, we place 2 to 3 students each year into internships at this facility as volunteers. During the recent Hallam, Nebraska, tornado disaster, several of these interns assisted in the recovery efforts by working as volunteers at the mobile command post at the site of the disaster. Opportunities also exist to interact with storm researchers from other universities during the storm chase season.
Students also have the opportunity to travel to regional and national meteorology conferences to interact with other storm researchers and to learn about the latest techniques and findings in the field of severe weather.
Each spring we organize and host the Central Plains Severe Weather Symposium (CPSWS). This event, held on our campus, features nationally known severe weather researchers giving presentations on the latest advances in severe weather research. There are also numerous severe weather related exhibits at this event. Our students also take an active role in organizing this symposium. As a result of their participation in the symposium, several of our students have acquired internships with various local, state, and federal agencies.
