The Spring Thunderstorm Project will allow students to measure the vertical profile of temperature, moisture, pressure, and wind in the immediate vicinity of a thunderstorm using a portable weather balloon system. Metropolitan State College will purchase the balloon system, or sounding system, and ground-based data recording equipment with grant funds. Meteorology students will carry the system into the field during the spring thunderstorm season and will release the instrumented balloons into the environments of the storms. The data collected will be used for case studies of the storms and will be the basis for a greater understanding of the storm's structure. Thunderstorms are one of nature's most important phenomena, yet little is known about their individual formation, detailed structure, or the potentially dangerous weather they may produce. Students involved in this field project will gain valuable experience in observing, instrumentation, and thunderstorm research. The experience they obtain may be applied at a more advanced level of thunderstorm research, where a better understanding of thunderstorms will lead to improved public forecasts and warnings.
