This week marks six months since a massive tornado tore through Greensburg. Researchers say the data they've collected about the storm could keep all of us safer in the future.

Researchers from the University of Oklahoma left Norman with a mobile radar unit from the University of Massachusetts on May 4th. Thanks to a flat tire, they ended up just east of Protection. For the next 90 minutes, they recorded information on the storm that eventually hit Greensburg. It was a storm one researcher calls “an absolute monster.”

Howie Bluestein and his students witnessed it.

“There was a storm that looked just like a right-moving super cell,” said Bluestein. “I was really surprised because we didn't expect that to be happening in this location.”

“Right-moving” super cells are more likely to produce tornadoes. Bluestein and his researchers set up their polarized radar unit - one that sends pulses both vertically and horizontally. Most radar units only pulse horizontally.

“If that storm hadn't formed, there may not have been a Greensburg tornado.”

Six months later, Bluestein and his students have just started analyzing the data. He compares the intensity of the Greensburg tornado to the twister that killed 36 people in Moore, Oklahoma in 1999. But there's one difference – the storm that produced the Greensburg tornado didn't know when to stop.

“After it went through protection, it was like the Energizer Bunny - it kept going and going and going up through central Kansas.”

One of the first details that jump out from the analysis was the ability to see the debris cloud inside the storm. Debris inside the storm is detected as high as 10,000 feet above the ground, and that's before it gets to Greensburg. The diameter of the debris field is two miles – the same as the damage path on the ground. This new capability and technique may help meteorologists confirm tornadoes, when its too dark for spotters to see a storm, or no spotter is around.

Inside the storm, the rotating wind shear reached between 250 and 300 miles per hour. Researchers have also determined the storm split several times and had several tornadoes happening simultaneously. They've just scratched the surface.

So what happens next? Bluestein and his research team plan to spend the next two years analyzing this data set and will eventually publish their findings in scientific journals. Meanwhile, the dual polarization that captured this new look at the Greensburg tornado is a planned upgrade to all National Weather Service Doppler radars in Kakeland - providing valuable information when you need it most.