This is an International Workstar 7500 Series, and like this week’s earlier 007 set reveal, it includes some rather interesting modifications…

Despite looking like something your Mom might use, the items mounted on the rear of the truck actually belong to the Centre for Severe Weather Research (CSWR) based in Boulder, Colorado. This truck is a storm chaser.

Known as ‘Dopplers on Wheels’ these trucks are some of the very few vehicles that can get inside storm cell at ground level, all whilst carrying X-band radar and an on-board mobile weather station. The doppler radar enables meteorologists to read internal storm wind-speeds, track storm movement, measure rotation (to identify tornado risk), and conduct other nerdy weather-related stuff.

This excellent recreation of one of CSWR’s storm chasing trucks comes from sponki25 of Flickr, who has included a brick-built radar unit, extendable stabilisers, mobile weather station, and what looks like a TV aerial on a long stick. There’s much more to see at both Flickr and MOCpages – click the links to chase the storm.