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Tornado in a bottle experiment offered insights into U of I doppler radar research

A Saturday event in Homewood gave children and adults a chance to “make a tornado” in a bottle with assistance from students with the University of Illinois’ Department of Atmospheric Sciences.

One bottle was filled with water and taped to an inverted bottle. Starting with the water in the top bottle, participants circularly swished the water. The two bottles became a funnel and the action created a spiral that replicated a tornado.

A Doppler on Wheels (DOW) vehicle was on exhibit Saturday in Homewood. The white disk uses radar to measure atmospheric changes. The truck also has an antenna that extends 10 meters to measure wind speed and pressure. (Photo courtesy of Allisa Opyd, Village of Homewood)

It was a simple approach to a scientific event, one of many the U of I students examine using the Doppler on Wheels (DOW), a moveable radar system that allows them to collect valuable information on meteorological events.  

The four students, including Melinda Berman, a 2017 graduate of Homewood-Flossmoor High School, brought two of the DOW fleet’s trucks to the Homewood Village Hall parking lot giving visitors a chance to see up close the equipment that reports data to meteorologists as they prepare for weather forecasts. 

Daniel Selfie helps his daughter, Sarai, 2, pour glitter into a water bottle so she can create her own mini-tornado. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)

Berman received a bachelor’s degree in Atmospheric, Oceanic and Environmental Science from UCLA and is now working on a master’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She plans to earn a doctoral degree and use it as a research scientist.

DOW has been part of the University of Illinois’ Department of Atmospheric Sciences program since 2020. Before that, it was operated as the Center for Severe Weather Research in Colorado.

Onlookers were fascinated by a circular disk on the back of one DOW truck. It looked like something from a space movie. It‘s used to send and receive electro-magnetic impulses of storm particles, measuring particles’ size and shape, said doctoral candidate Troy Zaremba. Also on the truck was an antenna that could extend 10 meters up to measure wind speed and direction.

U of I students Eddie Wolff, left, and Troy Zaremba place a Pod on the ground so visitors can get a better look at the weather measurement equipment. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)

The other vehicle had an array of quickly-deployable weather stations, commonly referred to as Pods. Kids were fascinated by the Pods’ spinning weather vane.

Although Pods are heavy, they are mobile and allow a team to place them wherever it is feasible to get good readings of temperature, wind speed, pressure and localized measurements, Zaremba said. 

U of I student Eddie Wolff welcomed visitors to step into the cabin of the DOW truck to check out equipment. This truck has two pieces of equipment, including the antenna that can extend 10 meters vertically. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)

Pods make it easy to measure meteorological phenomena that occur infrequently and/or very near the ground. Measurements offer data of tornadoes, hurricanes, microbursts, dust devils, etc. that can often have a short timeframe – from seconds to minutes, according to U of I information.

The truck also had a disdrometer that uses a laser to measure the size and shape of particles, according to Zaremba.

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