Fifth grade science teacher David Thon is joining as an “embedded blogger” as a team of WeatherBug meteorologists take part in a five-day-long tornado chase called WeatherBug Storm Chase 2004. The team will set out in search of storms beginning Monday, May 3 in Oklahoma City:
- David (top right) was chosen from hundreds of teacher applicants to be a guest on the WeatherBug storm chase. Thon is an award-winning educator who was responsible for incorporating the WeatherBug Achieve program into the Appleby Elementary curriculum nearly two years ago. After a nationwide search, he was selected for the WeatherBug Storm Chase for his enthusiasm and innovative use of live weather data in classroom lessons.
Thon will play a key role in gathering/analyzing data and readings and in learning more about how and why tornadoes take place. He will write to this web log – or ‘blog’ – about the experience several times a day and also answer questions from students and colleagues via email.
The WeatherBug Storm Chase team, including Chief Meteorologist Mark Hoekzema and Meteorologist/Storm Chase Specialist Mark Lee, will set off to chase storms beginning in Oklahoma City on Monday, May 3 and will continue through Friday, May 7 – the height of the tornado season.
The group will seek out severe weather using a specialized vehicle called the WeatherBug Storm Chaser. The Dodge Durango is packed with a state-of-the-art wireless satellite tracking system to track storm cells, and special wirelessly-enabled weather monitoring equipment that can stream live conditions and camera images to the Internet.