OBSERVATIONS OF THE 10 MAY 2010 TORNADO OUTBREAK USING OU-PRIME Potential for New Science with High-Resolution Polarimetric Radar

S ince the early 1970s, Doppler radar has been used as the primary tool in advancing our knowledge of the kinematics and dynamics of severe convective storms. In particular, a pair of fixed-site, S-band Doppler radars in central Oklahoma was used by the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in Norman for a number of years. Based on singleand dualDoppler data collected by the serendipitous nearby passage of tornadic supercells, much was learned about supercell structure, dynamics, and tornado formation (e.g., Brandes 1984). Alas, the number of cases available was limited by the relatively few storms caught in the act of producing tornadoes within the small area for which dual-Doppler observations were available (within ~80 km of each radar). For example, between 1970 and 2010, the best cases documented in the literature of tornadic storms near fixed-site radars in central Oklahoma total only about 10 in the 40-yr period (Lemon et al. 1978; Brandes 1984; Zrnić et al. 1985; MacGorman et al. 1989; Dowell and Bluestein 1997; Burgess et al. 2002; Hu and Xue 2007; Romine et al. 2008). Furthermore, it is extremely unlikely and rare for a tornado to form close enough to one of the radars (within ~5–10 km) so that tornado-scale measurements could be made. OBSERVATIONS OF THE 10 MAY 2010 TORNADO OUTBREAK USING OU-PRIME Potential for New Science with High-Resolution Polarimetric Radar