@eaps-spottr.bsky.social
Students of Purdue Observing Tornadic Thunderstorms for Research (SPOTTR): Severe Storms Field Work course. This account disseminates announcements related to the course and its activities, in near real-time from the field.
#SPOTTR student @willow-w25.bsky.social: "I think the #SPOTTR course is a great way for me to really hone in on the forecasting skills that I'll need for [a military weather officer] career" youtu.be/M7yuVs4cVIM
Fun fact: Willow came to Purdue after meeting a previous SPOTTR class out in the field!
#SPOTTR student @lgrose24.bsky.social: Watching storms “definitely reminds me, and I'm sure it reminds everyone else, why we chose this major.”
youtu.be/V66lmQoA3mc
Two-time #SPOTTR student @maliyah-wx.bsky.social: "I had an amazing time the past year, and I really wanted to experience it again, because I feel like there's a lot more I can learn from it still. You can never learn too much." youtu.be/Nu7Mun3BlXs
30.07.2025 21:11 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
#SPOTTR student @morgancrows.bsky.social: "As a kid, I definitely loved the sound of thunder most, not like the really angry thunder, but more the gentle rolling. I always thought it was very relaxing." youtu.be/_RB0hMSUvnQ
29.07.2025 18:17 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
#SPOTTR student Ben M.: "There were times where radar was indicating rotation not too far from us... and you get that adrenaline rush through that." www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpSt...
29.07.2025 13:05 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
#SPOTTR student Daniel S.: "If you had asked me a year and a half ago, 'Do you think you'd like doing fieldwork?', I would have said, 'Absolutely not.' Now having done it once I can say, I enjoy it quite a bit!" youtu.be/BKqBWixphsM
29.07.2025 13:05 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
#SPOTTR student @paige-ashlyn-h.bsky.social: "Looking at a radar is one thing, and a case in the past that might have happened, but when you're there, and you get to compare it, it's so much different."
youtu.be/rCv-OmcDjbo
Our department, Purdue EAPS, is releasing a series of video interviews with #SPOTTR students through their Superheroes of Science channel! The first video features Prof. Tanamachi @tornatrix.bsky.social describing SPOTTR's origins and ethos.
29.07.2025 13:05 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0I haven’t processed that such an amazing experience is already over 💛🖤
Paige’s SPOTTR review coming soon…
Some highlights from Purdue’s SPOTTR course :) special thanks to @tornatrix.bsky.social and @eaps-spottr.bsky.social for an amazing week on the plains ☺️
12.07.2025 14:44 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
A topographic map annotating all the places SPOTTR traveled over the 7 days of the trip, circling westward from Indiana to Wyoming and back again.
#SPOTTR 2025 wrapped up its trip on Saturday!
Miles driven: 3,442.
Thanks to @paige-ashlyn-h.bsky.social for the wonderful graphic of our trip!
SPOTTR has returned to West Lafayette!
Here's a video from our last chasing day (July 4) between Bismark and Fargo, ND. Thunderstorm outflow provided a rather ominous sight in our rear view mirrors with a shelf cloud and blowing dust.
Skew T log p diagram showing a deep well mixed layer, and hodograph with very little deep layer shear.
People on a dirt road watching distant showers
A bell shaped wall cloud
Same wall cloud as before, in the process of morphing into a shelf cloud
After Devils Tower, we worked our way up to Buffalo, SD, where we launched a sonde that revealed multiple small inversions and rather underwhelming 0-6 km bulk shear (19 kts). Ended the day with a fat wall cloud near Belfield, ND. #SPOTTR
04.07.2025 04:45 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A group of people in front of Devils Tower in Wyoming
Earlier today, on our way to a North Dakota target, we stopped and did a little sightseeing! #SPOTTR
03.07.2025 23:16 — 👍 11 🔁 3 💬 1 📌 0
A backlit rain shaft with a tapered dark tendril in the middle
Your Fake-nado of the day #SPOTTR
03.07.2025 01:58 — 👍 30 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0
A group of people standing under a stormy sky.
Our group in front of a nonsevere storm near Spotted Horse, WY yesterday!
03.07.2025 12:08 — 👍 6 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1Impressive lightning show on our drive back from dinner to the hotel in Wyoming.
03.07.2025 05:27 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
July 2, 2025: We drove from Nebraska through South Dakota to Gillette, Wyoming. Students enjoyed a slow-moving, photogenic storm northwest of Gillette. Driving west in the evening, we saw the sunset with storms over the mountains and on either side of the highway.
03.07.2025 04:49 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0Driving to Alliance, Nebraska on July 1.
02.07.2025 04:54 — 👍 9 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Storms started to get much more photogenic day 3 of the chase!
02.07.2025 04:49 — 👍 8 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Cumulonimbus cloud with a white waterfall of hail spilling out the left side.
We interrupt your utterly justified rage fest to bring you some meteorological eye candy: a brilliant #hail shaft east of Alliance, NE. #newx #SPOTTR
02.07.2025 01:35 — 👍 69 🔁 6 💬 2 📌 0#SPOTTR 2025, Day 2: hodographs were a bit longer today in NW MO and NE KS than yesterday, allowing us to target two storm clusters in those respective areas. The latter produced a funnel cloud near Centralia, KS, that we arrived too late to see. On to Nebraska tomorrow!
01.07.2025 03:22 — 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 2 📌 0
We took a sounding near Richmond, MO in advance of some multicell clusters. The profile contained multiple cloud layers and was vaguely suggestive of wet microbursts. We didn't stick around long enough to find out. #mowx
30.06.2025 22:02 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1A nice way to end our first day on the road driving west towards Des Moines. A backlit storm provided an evening spectacle.
30.06.2025 13:13 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Skew-T log p diagram of a sounding showing 3000 J/kg CAPE, but only 12 kt 0-6 km bulk shear
Three people standing in front of a cloud
#SPOTTR Day 1: Our 2300 UTC sounding from Anamosa, IA revealed:
✅ Instability
✅ Moisture
✅ Lift
❌ No shear for you!
Result: Pulse storms and multicell clusters
A group of people standing in front of a trailer.
Departure group photo! Get ready, storms, we’re coming! #SPOTTR
29.06.2025 19:45 — 👍 11 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
A man standing in front of a projected slide that says, “Tornadoes: Basic Definition”
Our #SPOTTR students, along with several guests from around EAPS, are now “certifiable” National Weather Service storm spotters! We are so deeply appreciative of Sam Lashley and Dave Beachler (not pictured) from NWS Indy for presenting an in-person training session to our class!
26.06.2025 15:21 — 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
A class watches a man standing next to a large metal tank. The slide on the screen reads: “Cylinder storage”
A group of people stand on grass, each manipulating a small weather instrument on a tripod.
It’s been a busy week as our #SPOTTR students learn how to safely handle compressed helium cylinders, calibrate the compasses on their Kestrels, and more!
26.06.2025 01:38 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Three hunks of play dough on a table, with colors fading from brown to red to white in the middle.
A man holding up colored globs of play dough
A classroom full of students holding up globs of play dough
Today we learned about how radar takes slices through storm cells using colored Play-Doh (reflectivity isosurfaces) and plastic knives (the radar beam)!
19.06.2025 22:55 — 👍 13 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Two people standing on grass holding a large white balloon
Skew-T log p diagram showing the thermodynamic and wind profile for the Lafayette, Indiana, area around 1500 UTC on 18 June 2025
Our #SPOTTR class launched a radiosonde this morning to help NWS Indianapolis collect extra upper air data in advance of today's storms! It was great training for our upcoming trip! Photo from @paige-ashlyn-h.bsky.social. #inwx
18.06.2025 20:19 — 👍 8 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
