Update on the State of OTUS Project Data Science
This spring, the OTUS Project collected incredible measurements inside eight tornadoes on over a dozen flights. While we have shared previews of our data and even provided raw numbers to several academic researchers in meteorology, we have not made our values public. In the interest of transparency, this update will explain our challenges, process, and when to expect our findings to be released.
Collecting measurements of temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed each have their own unique challenges and variables. A typical monitoring setup would be unable to collect useful information in the extraordinarily dynamic environment of a tornado, especially from a high-speed drone. The thermodynamic response times needed are so great that only specialized sensors are able to keep up. In addition, these sensors have to be simultaneously shielded from the degrading conditions while being sufficiently exposed and uncontaminated to measure it. Most of our efforts have been in developing our own 3D wind sensor in collaboration with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for tornado measurements on OTUS drones, as there is no lightweight sensor on the market which can measure such intense winds.
The OTUS team working with partners at NIST on wind sensor calibrations.
Hundreds of hours have been dedicated by our team members to working with our sensors and developing new wind probe technology alone. Currently, we are running tests on our temperature, pressure, and relative humidity sensors to collect controlled information regarding different physical and environmental variables. We will be doing this and analyzing our findings through the coming months. The ongoing government shutdown has delayed our collaborative efforts and wind tunnel calibrations with NIST, so our wind data will take longer. We are reasonably confident that we can begin sharing our findings in early 2026 before we begin field deployments that spring. Once our process is complete, we will be able to rapidly analyze and share our insights after future intercepts.
Lastly, we have been almost entirely self-funded to date, which has also made this process far more time intensive than expected. In relation to current events around weather science, while there has been immense interest from the academic world, such an uncertain environment has made it hardly feasible to receive public funding, despite our efforts. We have plans to help crowdfund our work for the future as we are not in the financial position to do this for another year on our own (stay tuned for more details!). We have huge plans ahead… better sensors, more drones, more people, unlocked capabilities, and chasing harder than ever.
To summarize, we have collected incredible measurements that we are very eager to share with the wider world. It will likely be months before we can share this. Science, specifically for the benefit and safety of all people threatened by tornadoes, is what we exist for. We were founded with the goal of gathering measurements that will bring about real-world change, and that requires immense effort. We are still early on in our path to forwarding our understanding of tornado hazards, and we believe the future is bright. We want to push technological innovation to its limits and bring the entire weather world along with us for the journey. Once we have proven the scientific credibility and accuracy of our data, we will have many exciting things to share with you all.
-The OTUS team
