The intensity, structure, and evolution of convective storms are strongly influenced by the characteristics of the environments in which they occur. Numerous measurement systems have been used to quantify the environment near convective storms, not the least of which are radiosonde soundings that provide valuable thermodynamic and kinematic vertical profiles. Although much has been learned about the typical nature of environments that support severe convective storms (of which tornado-producing storms are a subset) over the past several decades, an understanding that has enabled improvements in forecasts of severe convective storms and the hazards they produce, there are still substantial uncertainties in the degree to which the atmospheric (meso- and synoptic-scale) environment determines specific storm characteristics; even in seemingly favorable environments, many supercells may not produce tornadoes, and it is difficult to disentangle internal, seemingly stochastic processes from mesoscale heterogeneities in the background environment that are typically not be well sampled by the synoptic-scale observation networks. This research leverages storm- and mesoscale observations, such as soundings released at frequent intervals and radar observations, to elucidate the storm- and mesoscale variations that may modulate storm structure, with an additional focus on the nature of the modification to the mesoscale environment that the storm may produce. 

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