The National Severe Storm Laboratory (NSSL) is one of the leading organizations in the world for the collection of weather data. Many people call the NSSL meteorologists that work in the field 'storm chasers' after watching movies like Twister. However, this is not accurate. Although there is no official title of 'storm chaser', the terminology sticks. Instead, meteorologists gather weather data through a network of mobile technologies including the mobile mesonet, Doppler-on-wheels (DOW), mobile balloon soundings, and more. One such project was the VORTEX project in the 1990s. Vortex focused on tornado formation and was one of the first advanced research projects to focus on tornadoes in the field. Now, the VORTEX-2 project is about to be launched with the goal of increasing tornado warning times and protecting public safety. The NSSL was also a pioneer in the creation of a program called TOTO (Totable Tornado Observatory). While this project had little success, in the movie Twister, the DOT and Dorothy machines were based on TOTO. Watch a video on the collection of weather data in the field courtesy of the NSSL.
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