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Abstract This study utilizes mobile Doppler wind lidar (DWL) observations collected by the National Severe Storms Laboratory throughout recent collaborative field experiments. Using data from 50 deployments on 36 supercells between 2017 and 2023, this work compares the kinematic environments of tornadic and non-tornadic right-moving supercells. The DWL observations provide the unique opportunity to sample the sub-hourly evolution of the storm inflow wind profile, especially below 500 m. DWL observations are combined with surface and radiosonde observations using optimal estimation to create complete vertical wind profiles for quantification of severe weather forecasting parameters. Supplementary Rapid Refresh model profiles are used to estimate the near-storm environmental perturbations. The tornadic supercells show larger ground-relative winds, and ground-relative wind perturbations, than non-tornadic supercells. Differences in storm-relative wind are less consistent but are larger above 1 km in tornadic environments with a signal for larger winds 10–20 minutes after tornadogenesis. Low-level SRH discriminates tornadic from non-tornadic cases better than deep-layer SRH, but does not show a tendency to increase leading up to tornadongenesis, nor does the wind shear or SRW. The tornadic environments have greater near-ground horizontal vorticity (both streamwise and crosswise) with vorticity maximized very close to the ground (≤ 100 m), indicating the potential importance of frictionally-generated vorticity and related processes. Overall, this work demonstrates the utility of DWL for sampling near the ground in storm environments while providing clarity on results from recent literature.