Center boosts tornado defenses

Rick Robinson
Research News

The tornado that ripped through downtown Atlanta on March 14 produced a death, psychological shock and some $150 million in damage. Yet it was hardly an isolated event.
Georgia ranks high among tornado-plagued areas of the United States. It was 18th among the most affected states between 1953 and 2004. And in 2007, Georgia experienced 42 twisters; only seven states suffered more hits.

Helping to protect Georgia residents against such violent weather is the job of the researchers of the Severe Storms Research Center (SSRC) at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI). One of their tasks: to explore and develop new technologies able to improve both the accuracy and the timeliness of tornado warnings.

Currently, NEXRAD Doppler radar technology is state-of-the-art in the United States, which is ravaged by more tornadoes than anyplace else on Earth. NEXRAD offers about a 15-minute average advance warning that a tornado may hit.

“That’s a big improvement over the old days, when a funnel cloud on the horizon was often the first warning,” said John Trostel, deputy director of the SSRC. “Before NEXRAD was established in the 1990s, you would have been lucky to have gotten a 30-second warning.”
The GTRI center was founded after a tornado struck Gainesville with no warning in March 1998, leaving 11 people dead in Hall County, recalls SSRC Director Gene Greneker.

A task force formed by then-Georgia Gov. Zell Miller recommended a severe-storms center with several missions, including conducting cutting-edge research, collecting and archiving storm data and improving detection and warning. The center was initially funded through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and ongoing support has come through the state of Georgia with the continuing involvement of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA).

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