Bow Echo and Meso-Scale Convective Vortices Experiment

Fresh out of a major maintenance overhaul and fully instrumented by AOC engineers and technicians for severe storm research, a NOAA P-3 called Kermit deployed from its home at MacDill Air Force Base to Mid America airport in western Illinois, just east of St. Louis, Missouri, on May 19th to participate in the Bow Echo and Meso-Scale Convective Vortices Experiment, known by the acronym BAMEX. Operating with another Doppler radar equipped aircraft, provided by the Naval Research Lab (NRL), and a high-altitude dropsonde Lear jet provided by Weather Modification Inc. of Fargo, North Dakota, NOAA 42, Kermit's call sign, is slated to provide approximately 150 hours of flight time to this severe weather project.

In scientific jargon, the objectives of BAMEX are to:

1. Improve predictability of bow echo disturbances, especially those producing severe weather (damaging winds/non-supercell tornadoes).

2. Improve predictability of secondary convection generated by meso-scale vortices.

3. Document and understand factors contributing to the development of horizontal circulations with long-lived convective systems.

4. Improve 6-24 hour Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts (QPF).

In simpler terms, the two Doppler radar equipped P-3s and the dorpsonde aircraft will map the three-dimensional structure of evolving squall lines, many of which produce tornados, and the associated large scale precipitation area known as a mesoscale convective vortex, or MCV. Operating mostly between dusk and dawn, when these severe weather systems reach their peak intensities, these aircraft will cover an areas of the Midwest within 425 nautical mile radius of MidAmerica airport wherever these Bow Echoes and MCVs form. The project, which will last seven weeks (until early July), will provide scientists with never before available data to foster a better understanding of these storms and to aid them in the development of better tools for the prediction of their onset and intensity.