The Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes - Southeast (VORTEX-SE) experiment is a coordinated effort between the National Severe Storms Laboratory, university partners, and other national laboratories to evaluate mesoscale heterogeneities that may hinder or help severe storm evolution and formation, storm-structure, terrain influences on storms, tornadgenesis and strengthening, and differences between storms in the Southern Plains and Southeast. The Texas Tech group is aimed at investigating the mesoscale heterogeneities as well as the role of cold pools and temperature deficits in producing, maintaining, and overall influencing tornadic supercells. Our group deployed 16 StickNet surface stations in a meso-network array across southern Tennessee and northern Alabama that ran continuosly for the project periods in 2016 and 2017. The remaining 8 probes were used in advance of supercells to gather observations of cold pool strength.
Analysis of observing periods and the project are forthcoming.