8/10/2009

Dr. Matthew Gilmore, Assistant Professor of Atmospheric Sciences, has been awarded a 4-year grant by the National Science Foundation to use a computer weather model to study the weather conditions and forces that support and maintain long-track supercell-spawned tornadoes. This gain in understanding is important because long-track tornadoes tend to be more violent, move faster, and cover more area thereby increasing their likelihood of encountering and damaging populated areas. The research will also investigate why other weather conditions allow the parent supercell to give birth to weaker, short-lived tornadoes or no tornadoes at all. This improved understanding should improve tornado forecasts. The grant supports three UND graduate students and is being conducted in collaboration with scientists at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (at the Univ. of Illinois). This award also complements Dr. Gilmore's participation in an ongoing historical study with veteran tornado researchers of the weather conditions that supported the most infamous long-track tornado that killed about 700 people: the Tri-State tornado of 18 March 1925.