{"id":6930,"date":"2025-07-08T15:10:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T20:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/?p=6930"},"modified":"2025-07-10T14:34:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T19:34:05","slug":"nssl-captures-stunning-data-on-ef-3-tornado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/2025\/07\/nssl-captures-stunning-data-on-ef-3-tornado\/","title":{"rendered":"NSSL CAPTURES STUNNING DATA ON EF-3 TORNADO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data set capture represents a remarkably complete sampling of a strong tornado and will provide valuable insight into tornadoes including: how they form, how winds behave at the surface, the types of damage they are capable of and the other types of hazards that can accompany them.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MOBILE LiDAR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The severe storms research community continues to seek better understanding of the structure and intensity of tornadoes near ground level to better mitigate impacts to life and property. One of the best ways to get these ground-level observations that traditional radars can miss, is with a Doppler wind LiDAR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Doppler wind LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) emits high energy light pulses and measures the wind by the frequency shift of the backscattered signal. Radars work the same way, except LiDAR relies on the energy bouncing off small particles in the atmosphere, like dust, whereas radar relies more on precipitation and biological scatterers like insects. This makes LiDAR ideal for measuring winds in \u201cclear air\u201d outside of precipitation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

NSSL\u2019s mobile LiDAR is small, light and efficient, allowing it to be mounted in a standard pick-up truck bed and for high maneuverability and quick deployments near storms. The \u201cpencil\u201d beam of the lidar allows for accurate measurements near the ground without interference from the ground that can sometimes contaminate radar beams that spread apart with distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Arnett, Okla., tornado, NSSL’s LiDAR team collected near-ground (under 200 ft.) observations of the wind in the tornado every 30 seconds. Mobile mesonet stations equipped on the front of the vehicle collected close range surface observations of the environment surrounding the tornadic circulation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coupled with video of the tornado, including a closeup of the ground circulation, and damage survey efforts this data will provide detailed insight into how the tornado is moving and causing damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HAIL CAMERA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Developed by NSSL researchers, our new hail camera system<\/a> is part of an effort to collect detailed, real-time, pre-impact observations of hail events. The goal is to use the data collected by the hail camera to enhance public safety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Arnett storm, NSSL researchers captured hail stones roughly the size of baseball or softball in free fall immediately north of the tornado. The camera system will allow researchers to analyze the size, shape, fall speed, rotation rate, water content and more for these hail stones. These observations are critically important to determining how hail looks on radar, and how our forecast models can get better at predicting it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, better hail data will lead to improved warnings, more resilient infrastructure, and deeper insights into storm behavior; all of which help communities prepare for and respond to hail storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DAMAGE SURVEYS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tornado science doesn\u2019t end when the storm dissipates. In the days after the tornado, a team of NSSL researchers returned to the area to do ground damage surveys. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These post-storm damage surveys are an important piece of tornado research. By examining damage severity and pattern and comparing it with other collected data like LiDAR wind scans, researchers can gain a better understanding of tornado impacts on structures and vegetation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These types of damage analysis can be useful in better understanding and measure tornado strength and intensity, as well as how we can advise future efforts to engineer and build more resilient and safer homes and structures.  
The data collected by the survey team was also shared with the NOAA National Weather Service\u2019s Norman Forecast Office. This collaboration is helpful to NWS Norman as they as tasked with assigning a rating to the storm. The Arnett tornado received an EF3 rating<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":6931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","ghostkit_customizer_options":"","ghostkit_custom_css":"","ghostkit_custom_js_head":"","ghostkit_custom_js_foot":"","ghostkit_typography":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4,631],"tags":[622,182,336],"class_list":["post-6930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration","category-forecast","category-tornado","tag-featured","tag-hot-items","tag-nssl"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6930"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6955,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6930\/revisions\/6955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inside.nssl.noaa.gov\/nsslnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}