Summary

The VORTEX-SE Scientific Steering Committe determined that it is highly desirable to conduct observations across the Southeast cool season.  The period of slightly enhanced tornado potential extends from October through early May, and the forecasting and societal response difficulties are probably larger in the late Fall and Winter than in the spring.  Further, the vagaries of inter-annual variability create significant risk to observing campaigns focused on short March/April windows.  Finally, some aspects of the issues related to PBL representation in forecast models require longer-duration time series of observations than are possible during short campaigns.  For these reasons, current VORTEX-SE plans call for observing campaigns that span the November-April Southeast “tornado season”.