Oswego Chasers prepare to hunt storms in Tornado Alley
OSWEGO, N.Y. (WSYR) — SUNY Oswego's storm-chasing student team, the 'Oswego Chasers,' is hitting the road again on Tuesday, May 27.
Dr. Scott Steiger, professor of meteorology and Director of LESPaRC, spent Memorial Day preparing his class and visiting students from states in the northeast for the annual summer expedition in the Great Plains.
Students were testing instruments, such as a Radiosonde weather balloon, that would be vital to their research in the field. Dr. Steiger told his team the tool measures moisture, temperature, and wind at least 10 miles above the surface.
Students from as far as Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, along with Oswego-based students, will be split into three teams to focus on forecasting, equipment care, and logistics. Because their focus is on forecasting daily, each team observes, takes measurements, and compares their data from earlier in the day with the data at the end.
'That really can help to determine whether or not we're in a good place to…where thunderstorms may develop,' Dr. Steiger said.
Dr. Steiger has been preparing his band of misfit meteorologists all semester long to take on 'Tornado Alley' for two weeks, a tradition he has loved since 2007.
'One day we'll be in Texas,' he said. 'Two days later, we could be in Montana.'
David Rienza, a SUNY Oswego 2024-25 graduate, said he has always been fascinated by storms in New York State but is ready to observe them on a larger scale.
'We get severe thunderstorms, but they're nothing compared to, you know, how severe…just how massive they are out in the Plains,' Rienza said.
During the instrument demonstration, the professor's team agreed they were ready to put their skills and tools to the test.
'We can actually plot it ourselves,' Kaitlin Farrell, a senior, said. 'We get to collect that data that we, normally, are kind of given…with these instruments, we can actually see how this stuff works!'
Senior Jason Ruiz, an avid astronomy enthusiast, cannot wait to apply his knowledge of Earth and space science while studying the skies.
'It brings excitement to me…knowing that what I'm looking at on the screen is actually happening, like, in large scale around me,' Ruiz said.
As Dr. Steiger prepares to pack the vagabond fleet of vans in the morning, he said he never ceases to look forward to his favorite part of any trip.
'When we're out watching a storm…I have my iPad, and we're looking at the radar imagery of the storm, and they're comparing what they're visually seeing to what they see on the radar screen and you can just see when they make that connection in their eyes,' he said.
The Oswego Chases depart at 7 a.m. and hope to be storm-chasing in Western Oklahoma by Wednesday evening.
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