Doppler On Wheels (or DOW) are a fleet of radar trucks maintained by the Center for Severe Weather Research led by Joshua Wurman, with the funding mainly provided by the National Science Foundation. The project consists of three trucks mounted with doppler weather radar dishes, a support vehicle, and three instrumented SUV/Pickups which deploy instrumented pods in tornadoes and hurricanes. The DOW mobile radar networks has recently been made an NSF National Facility available for use by NSF-funded researchers and others.
The goal of the DOWs to collect as much detailed information on severe and other weather as possible using the mobile Doppler vehicles. DOWs have observed 141 tornadoes at close range, and intercepted the eyes of 11 hurricanes (most recently Ike and Gustav in 2008). DOW data led to the discovery of sub-kilometer hurricane boundary layer rolls, which likely modulate wind damage and may play a key role in hurricane intensification. DOW data revealed the most intense tornado winds ever recorded (Bridgecreek, 3 May 1999), and the largest tornadic circulation ever documented (also 3 May 1999 in Mulhall, OK).
One DOW has recently been used by the Discovery Channel's reality television series Storm Chasers, National Geographic Channel's television specials Tornado Intercept and The True Face of Hurricanes, and PBS's Nova episode "The Hunt For The Supertwister," and others. The DOW trucks are based out of Boulder, Colorado. The DOW fleet consists of the DOW6, DOW7, and multi-beam Rapid-Scan DOW. DOWs have participated in over 20 field programs including VORTEX, COPS (Germany/France), MAP (Italy/Switzerland), JAWS-Juneau(Alaska), PAMREX, FLATLAND, CR1, ROTATE, and CALJET, and will be core instrumentation in the upcoming VORTEX2 tornado study.
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