Sorry I didn't get to post today! Rather than write an email AND post a blog each day, I'll write the email only and post the pictures here. If you aren't on my email list, and would like to be, please email me at pfeister@siu.edu.

Onto images! The first three are from driving through Missouri, when I took shelter at a restaurant from two tornado warned storms: one to my north east and one to my south west. If I was ten minutes ahead of or behind where I was, I may have ran into them...





The National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma:
Look familiar? The "pods" on the left and central is the original "Dorothy" from the movie "TWISTER", based on the original one used on the right...
The beautiful interior of the National Weather Center:
The Storm Prediction Center and other parts of NOAA. The NPC puts out all the watches and warnings for the United States.
On our first day down, I walked around Oklahoma University in Norman, which was beautiful!!!

For my mom and sister, because I knew they'd love this. Two black cats wandering around campus....

The Library:
At the Storm Prediciton Center: they still hand draw some of their maps to visually comprehend ALL the imformation needed to accuratly forcast... and they do it in crayon!

A forcaster at the NPC:
A beautiful painting at the National Weather Center:
Hey, meteorologists like doughnuts too...
Onward to Woodward, Oklahoma! Where it's so hot, spoons melt into the road....
A news station from Tulsa, Oklahoma is following the Center for Severe Weather Research...
Josh Wurman opens the first full V2 morning meeting. We do this every morning.... Dr. Wurman is on the right, someone from the Discovery Channel's "Storm Chasers" is filming on the left...
People prepare to take off tomorrow... Mike Bettes from the weather channel is in the hat...

I met Mike Bettes!

Day two in Norman, OK

Well, we are still here in Norman. It's another down day, but V2 is more than likely traveling to Texas tomorrow to rondevous with the other teams. It will be the first day the entire V2 armada will be together, and it sounds like a practice deployment may be in the near future. But for now, all is quiet and the teams are back at the hotel.

Hopefully more tomorrow from Texas!

Tornados to my north, tornados to my south!!!

Well, after a rather eventful night of driving, I made it to Norman, Oklahoma. About 3 and half hours in, I hit two tornado warned storms; one on the ground and one potential producer, near Mountain View, MO. The sirens were blaring so I finally found a restaurant to stop at and take cover until the storms passed, and then got back on the road, only to be stopped again by the same thing! So after another round of waiting at a local firehouse in Mountain View, I finally got back on the road and made it into Norman around 3:30AM.

Today was supposed to be the launch day for V2, however the weather models are showing little to no potential of super cells being produced, so we have a "down day", here in Norman. I plan on using it to catch up on SLEEP (I only got 4 hours last night), and sightseeing around Norman.

Crossing my fingers that we get to take off tomorrow!