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May 23, 2013

Game Changer Research Aims to Forecast Tornadoes

Game Changer Research Aims to Forecast Tornadoes

Tornadoes claim hundreds of lives and cause billions of dollars in damages in the United States. With NSF support, computer scientist Amy McGovern at the University of Oklahoma is working to find answers to key questions about tornado formation. Why do they occur in some storms, but not in others? While video from storm chasers and data from Doppler radar can help meteorologists understand some aspects of tornadoes, McGovern uses different, powerful tools, such as supercomputers and known data mining, which finds patterns in very large datasets. The ultimate goal: to come up with a reliable tornado forecasting system.

Credit: National Science Foundation


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