For the second year in a row, a team of over 100 scientists and dozens of vehicles will take to Tornado Alley in an attempt to study one of Mother Nature’s most destructive phenomena. Like last year, Colorado researchers will be helping with the project.

Among the Colorado-based participants are University of Colorado students and researchers. They join others from 11 other universities from across the nation including the University of Oklahoma, Penn State University, and the University of Massachusetts.

Perhaps most well known, Dr. Josh Wurman of the Center for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) in Boulder will be a key contributor. Watchers of the Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers series know Wurman well as the operator of a Doppler On Wheels (DOW) radar truck and coordinator of the TV series’ storm chases.

Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2 (VORTEX2) is simply the largest, most extensive in-field tornado study in history. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the VORTEX2 team will prowl the Great Plains hunting their elusive prey from May 1st to June 15th.

Once again, a veritable armada of scientific equipment will be deployed. Ten mobile radar units, dozens of vehicles, over 70 other instruments and even an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) will cover thousands of miles on the Great Plains.

For the rest of this story including photos of all the equipment and amazing video of the tornado in Wyoming that the team intercepted last year, visit the Denver Weather Examiner.