Video: Hunting tornados

The hunt is on (Image: Will Gray) Last spring VORTEX2 scoured the Midwest hoping to catch sight of a twister as it formed (Image: Will Gray) As the thunderstorm approaches, the race is on to deploy networks of weather sensors in its path (Image: Will Gray) The tornado that VORTEX2 caught on 5 June 2009, as it formed over Goshen County, Wyoming. The tornado provided by far the best tornado data ever recorded, according to the researchers (Image: Will Gray) The Tornado Intercept Vehicle, designed to park up directly in the path of a tornado. It is equipped with sensors, is specially armoured and has panels around the body which are lowered to eliminate air gaps under the vehicle’s body – this helps keep it stable in high winds (Image: Will Gray) One of the VORTEX2 pod deployment vehicles in position in Goshen County, Wyoming (Image: Will Gray) One of the VORTEX2 mobile Doppler radar systems used to monitor the movement of rain and hail within the storm. This reveals the wind patterns flowing around the tornado (Image: Will Gray) Joshua Wurman, head of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colorado (Image: Will Gray)

5 JUNE 2009. It’s mid-afternoon and I am sitting with a group of researchers in a dusty parking lot in north-west Nebraska. There’s a growing buzz of excitement as equipment is checked one last time and then we set off. Finally, we are about to catch a glimpse of what we have been hunting for weeks: a tornado.

I have joined the biggest tornado hunt in history. The two-year, $12 million project, …