On Thursday, April 23, 2026, a violent tornado tore through Enid, Okla. As the storm dissipated and the skies cleared, NSSL jumped into action.
SCIENCE IN THE DAMAGE PATH
Category: Research News
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS: LIFT campaign seeks unprecedented tornado and hail data
NSSL’s LIFT project seeks to better understand the structure of tornadoes and other severe weather hazards and how they form by gathering vital, yet difficult-to-obtain observations in close proximity to tornadoes and extreme hail.
Storm ready: NOAA’s new mobile radar fleet bridges gap between research and weather safety
NSSL’s three cutting-edge mobile weather radars will allow NOAA researchers to deploy research-grade technology to the front lines of tornadoes, wildfires, hail storms, flash flooding and severe wind events, significantly expanding critical insight into hazardous weather threats in real time.
NSSL Advances Tornado Research with Uncrewed Aircraft Systems
Uncrewed Aerial Systems are opening new avenues for researchers to study tornadoes and gather data while staying safe.
RADAR CLUES: New Technique To Help Forecasters Predict Downbursts
NSSL is testing a radar-based technique that spots areas of cold, dense air inside thunderstorms — a key signal for potential downbursts. These bursts of strong, damaging wind can happen fast, especially during summer storms in the Southeast and Southern Plains.
NSSL CAPTURES STUNNING DATA ON EF-3 TORNADO
On May 18, 2025 a tornado touched down near the town of Arnett, Oklahoma. Researchers with the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) were in place to intercept the storm and capture stunning data of the EF3-rated tornado from beginning to end.
Revolutionizing Hail Forecasts — One Falling Stone at a Time
New high-speed camera captures hail in free fall to improve public safety
Using lightning to monitor the extreme impacts of landfalling hurricanes
A new paper on data collection during Hurricane Ian discusses the deployment of and data collected by a suite of instruments during the landfall of the Category 5 hurricane in Florida in 2022.
The Tornado That Didn’t Surprise: A Story of Preparedness and Partnership
The Warn-on-Forecast System, a revolutionary new forecasting tool being developed by NOAA’s National Severe Storms Laboratory, seeks to equip forecasters with critical information between watches and warnings to allow them to offer longer lead times…
Experimental Phased Array Radar captures wildfire data
For more than 60 years, the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) has been at the forefront of developing weather radar. Currently NSSL is working on Phased Array Radar (PAR) as the next generation of…