about june first
What is june first?
Ethan and Connor Moriarty in front of a tornado-warned supercell north of Amarillo, TX (May 18th, 2023)
June First Severe Weather Research was a project that I created in the Summer of 2018 after my freshman year of college. From a young age, I've had a passion for severe weather, and in particular tornadoes. On June 1st, 2011, my hometown was hit by an EF-3 tornado that left a 39 mile path of destruction and 3 people dead. It was the most influential day in my life. Fast forward to May 15th, 2018, my university was hit by a tornado, prompting me to apply for research grants to use my new engineering skills to better understand the impacts of tornadoes, thus leading to the creation of June First.
Now several years later, June First has expanded beyond original mission. With success in the development of prototype sensing devices used in the research of supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes, we’ve greatly expanded our efforts into telling the stories of Mother Nature. Oftentimes we marry our engineering background with filmmaking to provide unique and compelling stories about some of the severe weather that impacts us all. These films provide valuable lessons and an education into the powers of the natural world.
Come enjoy the ride with us as we push the boundaries of knowledge around weather and translate the stories of the sky into digital media!
- Ethan Moriarty
Founder of June First
What does june first do?
June First Severe Weather Research consists of two main elements; the engineering of technologies that are used to study severe weather and the creation of digital media about severe weather.
Since 2018, June First has been awarded 3 grants to develop technologies used to study supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes. June First’s first sponsored project was the Tornadic Inflow Measurement Probe (TIMP). Thanks to the QUIP-RS Program at Quinnipiac University, we designed and built a proof-of-concept tornado probe, TIMP v1.0. The project was featured and presented at ASME IMECE 2019 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
TIMP ultimately laid the groundwork for the expansion into out latest venture and sponsored project; the Aerial Supercell Measurement System (ASMS). The ASMS has been designed to be an all-encompassing system that can deploy sensor packages from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) while all being monitored by a ground control station. The sensor packages’ design stemmed from the lessons learned from the TIMP, and are now going to be iteratively improved and adapted based on what advancements are made or changes made to mission objectives. The first prototype was completed and tested in the Spring of 2021. Future engineering work is underway, including more development of future UAV platforms designed around the study of the atmosphere.
June First has been documenting severe weather since the summer of 2018 upon our founding. Over the past several seasons, the team has travelled all across the central United States during peak severe weather season documenting severe weather events.
In the Spring of 2022, the June First team put a great deal of effort into educational video content through the YouTube social media platform. With content ranging from weather-related engineering builds like a wind tunnel, to the detailed analyses of tornado damage in the Damage Analysis series, to exploring the engineering implications of nature disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the 2018 Camp Fire, the June First YouTube channel strives to create both entertaining and educational content for those that are interesting in the worlds of weather and engineering. We even go as far as capturing the human impact behind some of these tragic weather events, which oftentimes can be lost in grand scheme of the event. All of these topics are important matters that June First captures and presents to a global audience to spread the knowledge and awareness of these important topics. As of December 2024, The June First YouTube Channel has amassed an audience of 40,000 Subscribers with 5.2 million video views.