Nick Smith spotted this truck in Cambridge today. Closer inspection showed it's from the National Science Foundation's Center for Severe Weather Research.
More specifically, it's one of the center's Doppler on Wheels trucks:
The DOW radars made the first 3D maps of tornado winds and debris, the first maps of multiple vortex structure in tornadoes, the first maps of anticyclonic tornadoes; discovered hurricane boundary layer rolls, made the first observations of secondary rear flank downdrafts, mapped mesocyclone circulations in lake effect snowbands, observed how misocyclones along boundaries affected convective initiation, obtained the only comparisons of radar-measured winds, in-situ winds, and damage in tornadoes.
Plus that puppy's packing 200 gallons of fuel, so no worries when the storm knocks out all the electricity to gas pumps.
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Comments
OK. THAT's cool!
By lbb
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 10:50am
OK. THAT's cool!
Saw it this morning
By BostonDog
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 10:52am
The truck has Colorado plates. Someone just finished a last minute road trip.
Very cool
By Hyde_Parker
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 11:04am
n/t
NSF?
By Kaz
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 10:52am
Does that mean it's a NSFWork truck?
The Four Horsemen of the Weatherpocalypse
By anon
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 10:54am
...ride in on this thing.
"Weatherpocalypse"
By Refugee
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 3:58pm
This storm doesn't have a name yet. The only catchy one I've seen so far is "Near Historic" on boston.com.
Juno
By A Nonymous
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 11:25pm
...is the name that I saw elsewhere this evening.
Nope
By anon²
Tue, 01/27/2015 - 4:38pm
Just "The weather" channel
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/stop-calling-th...
Juno
By Ron Newman
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 11:28pm
is the name I've seen lately
UMASS
By anon²
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 10:55am
Wonder if UMASS will get in the fight as well.
http://mirsl.ecs.umass.edu/?q=node/35
[img]http://mirsl.ecs.umass.edu/images/Xpol.png[/img]
[img]http://mirsl.ecs.umass.edu/images/WbandOnTruck.jpg...
Your tax dollars being put to work to save lives folks! And FOR SCIENCE!
Better that than another
By Hyde_Parker
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 11:04am
Better that than another fighter jet or missile.
Federal tax dollars
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 11:05am
The UMass truck - and this one - are funded on federal grants.
And staffed
By anon²
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 11:17am
by UMASS graduate and undergraduate students
:)
True, but
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 11:21am
The graduate tuition, stipends and benefits are federally funded, as are the wages of the undergraduates.
This is how the contracts work.
The nice thing is that MA doesn't get back nearly what we pay into the federal coffers (guess where that money goes ...), so when we do it is a nice thing!
I work with a number of
By gotdatwmd
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 12:00pm
I work with a number of federal grantors, including NSF. NSF specifically is very, very into the nitty gritty of what they fund, so to keep that contract alive for so long really shows the dedication of the staff. Good stuff.
Understatement!
By SwirlyGrrl
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 12:31pm
That's an understatement!
It flows south mostly
By Tommy Jeff
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 12:09pm
To subsidize red state freedom.
and the federal grants are
By anon
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 11:33am
and the federal grants are funded by....
Pool Party
By D. Lucius Asparagus
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 12:27pm
There's a good chance the truck is up from the NSF deployment pool on UMASS request, rather than on CSWR activity. The DOWs were added to the pool a few years ago IIRC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch
By kvn
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 12:12pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FIMvSp01C8
For something that sits outside in a storm...
By Gary C
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 12:58pm
This thing could sure use a good coat of paint.
That's not all it could use.
By lbb
Mon, 01/26/2015 - 3:52pm
That's not all it could use. It looks like a flatbed with a bunch of stuff on it, a couple of equipment lockers and an ordinary truck cab. I'd expect a nice clubhouse where you could wait out the storm, complete with amenities.