Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with our Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech and today it's time
Speaker 1: for another classic episode. We are going to listen to
Speaker 1: how storm chasers work. This episode originally published on July
Speaker 1: twenty two, two thousand thirteen, and we've been getting a
Speaker 1: lot of storms here in Georgia, so it seems pretty
Speaker 1: a proposed that we go back and revisit this, So
Speaker 1: let's listen in. This is our warning, which we will
Speaker 1: be repeating at the end of the episode. Storm chasing
Speaker 1: is seriously dangerous business. This is not a hobbyist thing, um,
Speaker 1: though some people treated that way. It is you are
Speaker 1: putting yourself at serious risk when you are encountering major
Speaker 1: storm fronts, including but not limited to tornadoes. So we
Speaker 1: want to get all the way and um, the people
Speaker 1: who go about storm chasing our professionals. They are researchers,
Speaker 1: they have been trained, um and and they do serious work.
Speaker 1: It's it's not just all about the thrill. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that part of it for these people is a thrill.
Speaker 1: But but but the number of tornadoes in the United
Speaker 1: States has increased since the nineteen sixties, but the number
Speaker 1: of deaths in the US has declined due to these
Speaker 1: brave people's work. Right, we're learning more about these systems
Speaker 1: and how to predict them. Now, granted, prediction is about
Speaker 1: all we can do because these are major storm systems
Speaker 1: that we don't understand so much energy, and the energy
Speaker 1: and these storm systems rivals that of a nuclear bomb.
Speaker 1: They can they can reach above three miles an hour. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is serious business. So let's talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about what storm chasers are and what they do.
Speaker 1: So they do tend to fall into three major categories.
Speaker 1: You've at your scientific researchers, which I would say are
Speaker 1: probably the majority of well until recently, anyway, we're the
Speaker 1: majority of storm chasers. These are the men and women
Speaker 1: who dedicate their their lives to studying storm systems, gathering data,
Speaker 1: and trying to learn everything we can about them so
Speaker 1: that our forecast models get more and more precise, so
Speaker 1: that we can increase the levels of safety not just
Speaker 1: of where we build things, but how we build them
Speaker 1: and how to get people in out of harm's way.
Speaker 1: So that's one group. Another group are professionals who are
Speaker 1: trying to capture video or still images of storms and
Speaker 1: then sell them to either a news outlet or a
Speaker 1: magazine or television show, or just to any other type
Speaker 1: of customer. So they're trying to turn storm chasing into profit.
Speaker 1: And then your third category are your thrill seekers, who
Speaker 1: are treating it like a hobby. They want they want
Speaker 1: to witness the awesome power of a storm, which can
Speaker 1: be really amazing to behold, but it is so dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say that really technically most storm chasers fall
Speaker 1: into all three categories in some way, shape or form.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's it's it's that's true. It's
Speaker 1: not like it is a business. And most of them
Speaker 1: do take footage while they're in the most of them
Speaker 1: are also doing research and are probably excited about. Right,
Speaker 1: You've got you've got some hobbyists who are just trying
Speaker 1: to see a really cool storm. And you've got some
Speaker 1: companies that are operating tourism where it's actually they're creating
Speaker 1: a business where they're taking people out on tours to
Speaker 1: try and see one of these storms. Uh So there,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily that you you only belong to one category.
Speaker 1: You might span multiple categories, but that's generally how folks
Speaker 1: kind of classify them. Uh Now, really, when it comes
Speaker 1: down to what we need to talk about, what is
Speaker 1: an actual tornado, because that's mainly what storm chasers are
Speaker 1: concerned with. They also will take a look into huge
Speaker 1: thunderstorm systems, super cells, things like that. Uh. Also, some
Speaker 1: storm chasers will have some experience with things like hurricanes,
Speaker 1: which are different from tornadoes. Yeah, it is. It is
Speaker 1: kind of um implied that hurricane chasers are not really
Speaker 1: storm chasers because you're not so much chasing a hurricane
Speaker 1: you know where it is. Yeah, it's pretty obvious. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hurricanes are very different from tornadoes. Tornadoes are, Like we said,
Speaker 1: they are pretty mysterious. We don't understand fully how they form,
Speaker 1: what it is that's making them form, or why they
Speaker 1: form in once circumstances. But in another set that seems identical,
Speaker 1: they don't. So that means there's there's probably some other
Speaker 1: factors there that we just aren't really completely aware of.
Speaker 1: Uh that creates some randomness in this event which would
Speaker 1: cause them to form in one case and not another.
Speaker 1: So I guess we need to kind of define what
Speaker 1: a tornado is. Okay, well, so it's a it's a swirling,
Speaker 1: massive air um It is spawned from a areas of
Speaker 1: severe thunderstorms called super cells, which are storm clouds that
Speaker 1: can reach like six miles up into the atmosphere. These
Speaker 1: are tall, tall cloud systems, and it has enough energy
Speaker 1: to create a cyclone, a spinning air right now, if
Speaker 1: we want to go into an even more in depth definition,
Speaker 1: the Glossary of Meteorology says that it's a violently rotating
Speaker 1: column of air pendant from a cumuli form cloud or
Speaker 1: underneath a cumuli form cloud, and often but not always
Speaker 1: visible as a funnel cloud. So literally, in order for
Speaker 1: a vortex to be classified as a tornado, it must
Speaker 1: actually be in contact with the ground and otherwise otherwise
Speaker 1: it is just a funnel right, yeah, So it has
Speaker 1: to be in contact with the ground, has to be
Speaker 1: from the ground all the way up to the cloud base.
Speaker 1: If it's not all the way up to the cloud base,
Speaker 1: it could be what is called a gust nado or
Speaker 1: you know some people call them like you know, even
Speaker 1: little dust storms you'll see like a little twisting motion.
Speaker 1: Those are not actually tornadoes unless they extend all the
Speaker 1: way up to the cloud base. So it has to
Speaker 1: be from the cloud base to the ground for it
Speaker 1: to actually be a tornado. Now, usually within a tornado
Speaker 1: you've got wind sheer going on. That's that's winds at
Speaker 1: different altitudes that are blowing in different directions. Um, that
Speaker 1: that end up, you know, creating this rotation. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the rotation in the northern hemisphere tends to be counterclockwise
Speaker 1: and in the southern hemisphere it tends to be clockwise.
Speaker 1: But that's not a hard and fast rule. You can
Speaker 1: actually have the same way that that you can technically
Speaker 1: in the northern hemisphere. See water go down the drain. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The core Lanus effect is one of those things that
Speaker 1: a lot of people will cite when it comes to
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff that really applies to huge bodies,
Speaker 1: not tiny ones. But in this relatively tiny ones, I
Speaker 1: should say. But in this case, you can actually find
Speaker 1: storm systems that have both counter clockwise and clockwise moving
Speaker 1: tornadoes within one system. So it's not like a in
Speaker 1: fast rule, it's just more of a tendency. So. Um,
Speaker 1: there's also this thing called a messo cyclone. All right,
Speaker 1: this is a a twisting vortex of air that goes
Speaker 1: through a cloud system. But imagine that it's horizontal, all right,
Speaker 1: So it doesn't it's not it's not vertical yet. It's
Speaker 1: so it's a messo cyclone. It's kind of like what
Speaker 1: a tornado would look like if you put it on
Speaker 1: its side up in the clouds, all right, and then
Speaker 1: you get these these wind sheer uh factors, these these
Speaker 1: sharp moving horizontal winds that can telt the messo cyclone
Speaker 1: so that it is upright. And if it does in
Speaker 1: fact go upright and the base of it touches the ground,
Speaker 1: that's when you get your tornado. And like I said,
Speaker 1: you can have a very similar set of circumstances that
Speaker 1: in one case spawn a tornado and then another do not.
Speaker 1: Right right, Um, what what helps with the tornado is
Speaker 1: when you get these inflow bands, which are which are
Speaker 1: ragged bands of cumulance clouds that that um extend out away,
Speaker 1: usually to the south or southeast here in the northern hemisphere.
Speaker 1: Um and uh. It suggests that the storm is is
Speaker 1: gathering low level air from several miles away and and
Speaker 1: sucking in that that hot moist air that is going
Speaker 1: to be fueling the storm. Right now, I've heard another
Speaker 1: term when it comes to tornadoes, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: you actually know anything about it, because it intrigues me,
Speaker 1: it tasks me. And this is the term beaver tail.
Speaker 1: A beaver's tail, Am I am? I crazy? Or is
Speaker 1: that associated with tornadoes? Now? This is a thing. It's
Speaker 1: it's a smooth, flat cloud band that that extends again
Speaker 1: in the northern hemisphere from the from the eastern edge
Speaker 1: of the storm going out to the east or southeast
Speaker 1: or eastern northeast. I'm sorry, um, and uh it It
Speaker 1: also just suggests the presence of rotation. Got you. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: so in the storm systems, you have areas where there
Speaker 1: is precipitation and you have areas where there's no precipitation.
Speaker 1: I think the beaver's tail is in the no precipitation area.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of one of the borders of these
Speaker 1: storm systems. So if you see a storm system that
Speaker 1: has several of these indicators, that's one of those those
Speaker 1: warning signs to say this is the sort of situation
Speaker 1: in which tornadoes can form. Right, all of these situations
Speaker 1: can happen in completely benign, regular old thunderstorms, that nearly
Speaker 1: terrify your dog. And uh, wall cloud is another one
Speaker 1: that said, that's a cloud that seems like it's descending
Speaker 1: from the bottom of the storm. Um, and those are
Speaker 1: actually one of the more present that that's like your
Speaker 1: ten to twenty minute warning if a tornado is going
Speaker 1: to form. There, you've got about ten to twenty minutes
Speaker 1: from when that's when that Yeah, that's that's scary stuff.
Speaker 1: And so when this tornado is forming, you get an updraft,
Speaker 1: all right, and that up dress sars to pull in
Speaker 1: low level air from several miles around. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: talking a huge system here, and that low level air
Speaker 1: is pulled up through the updraft from the rain area,
Speaker 1: and the rain cooled air is incredibly humid, like you
Speaker 1: were saying, the moisture in the rain cool air quickly condenses,
Speaker 1: and uh, that's why you get that wall cloud. And
Speaker 1: then you know you know that they're the conditions are
Speaker 1: ripe for a tornado to form. And then you've got
Speaker 1: the rear flank down draft or RFD, and that's that's
Speaker 1: this downward rush of air from from the back end
Speaker 1: of the storm. That's a that's descending along with the
Speaker 1: funnel Wow. Yeah, so this this looks like it's a
Speaker 1: bright spot, right, that's what that's what this usually looks like.
Speaker 1: It's usually to the rear, and in the northern hemisphere
Speaker 1: it's the southwest side, which I think actually leads to
Speaker 1: a wives tale. There's an old wives tale that if
Speaker 1: you were to if a tornado is approaching and you
Speaker 1: have a basement, you should go and huddle in the
Speaker 1: southwest corner, the idea being that that would be the
Speaker 1: safest way from the path of the tornado. But as
Speaker 1: it turns out, tornado pathways are not nearly so predictable.
Speaker 1: They are very unpredictable in fact. And um and and
Speaker 1: also that that clear spot just doesn't have rain in it,
Speaker 1: it's still actually a space of extreme wind activity. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, then you've got the funnel itself, um and
Speaker 1: which the visibility of a tornado will often depend upon
Speaker 1: how much material is in it. Sometimes if usually if
Speaker 1: it's if it's a little bit of material, that's when
Speaker 1: it's it's most visible. That's when you can really see
Speaker 1: the definition of the funnel cloud. If it's hits some
Speaker 1: dust or something, right, right, if it's got some debris
Speaker 1: in there, when it's got a lot. It makes it
Speaker 1: hard to see because it just it looks like a
Speaker 1: massive darkness coming at you. By the way, we'll probably
Speaker 1: have some personal stories that we can relate a little
Speaker 1: bit because Lauren and I have both experienced being through tornadoes. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I I grew up in Northeast Georgia and
Speaker 1: I grew up in Ohio, and both areas have have
Speaker 1: been the site of tornado activity. Granted, not nearly at
Speaker 1: least in Northeast Georgia. It's not nearly to the same
Speaker 1: extent as places in the Midwest that are in what
Speaker 1: is called tornado Alley, but we still get quite a few. Yeah,
Speaker 1: speaking of tornado Alley, the United States has, or North
Speaker 1: America in general, has has the most tornadoes of any
Speaker 1: place on the planet, about about twelve hundred per year UM.
Speaker 1: And this is because of of what's called a dry line,
Speaker 1: which is a center of cool, dry air that is
Speaker 1: coming off of the deserts to the west and meeting
Speaker 1: up with the warm, wet air from the oceans of
Speaker 1: the east and causing all kinds of havoc right right, So,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of people will say that tornadoes
Speaker 1: are kind of the result of cold Canadian air mixing
Speaker 1: with the warm, moist air of the Caribbean. And then
Speaker 1: the party gets together and the snowbirds come down and
Speaker 1: the crazy steel drums come up, and then we have
Speaker 1: a big old party in the form of tornado. And
Speaker 1: any storm institute will tell you that's really simplification. That's
Speaker 1: not really that thing. Tornadoes do occur in other parts
Speaker 1: of the world. Absolutely, you find them in pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's just that the frequency is much greater in the
Speaker 1: United States. Sure, after the US, North America, I should say, yes,
Speaker 1: after the US, Argentina and Bangladesh have the next two
Speaker 1: highest proportions of tornadoes in per year. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: they happen everywhere, right, So a lot of the conversation
Speaker 1: we're going to have is again, and this comes as
Speaker 1: a surprise to nobody who's been listening to tech stuff
Speaker 1: for a long time, going to be very US centric.
Speaker 1: But that kind of makes sense because North America does
Speaker 1: play home to tornadoes. Get a pass in this particular instance.
Speaker 1: Trusts us if you if you live in a place
Speaker 1: that is very, very infrequently hit by tornadoes, just listen
Speaker 1: and enjoy as we discuss the terrifying experience that we
Speaker 1: have gone through as tornadoes have uh you know, rereaked
Speaker 1: havoc in our homeland. Um. In fact, we can go
Speaker 1: ahead and say this, we live in Atlanta right now. Um.
Speaker 1: And Atlanta a few years ago was hit by some
Speaker 1: by by a pretty massive tornado that did some major
Speaker 1: damage in downtown went right through downtown Atlanta, which is unusual.
Speaker 1: You don't frequently have tornadoes passed through metropolitan areas. And
Speaker 1: in fact, there were some theories for a while that
Speaker 1: the the island effect, the heat island effective of cities
Speaker 1: might have something to do with tornado formation. But it
Speaker 1: may just be that's the odds, you know, just one
Speaker 1: of those things where it's kind of pretty small. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you when you when you're talking about the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things in the city is a tiny target
Speaker 1: and when you talk about the entire United States. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, one went through downtown Atlanta and there for
Speaker 1: for months. There were major buildings in Atlanta that had
Speaker 1: temporary covers over a lot of windows, like high rise building,
Speaker 1: skyscraper buildings had these these temporary covers on their windows
Speaker 1: because they had to start replacing all of them, some
Speaker 1: of which are and buildings that have very um specific
Speaker 1: types of surfaces, Like we have one hotel in downtown
Speaker 1: Atlanta that's essentially a cylinders. It's beautiful, but it does
Speaker 1: mean that replacing the glass is somewhat difficult. And there
Speaker 1: were entire neighborhoods east of downtown that were just laid
Speaker 1: to waste, including some lofts that had just been built.
Speaker 1: They had been converted from old warehouses and old manufacturing plants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they had just been converted into the hill offs
Speaker 1: and then destroyed. Um that's all been rebuilt now, but
Speaker 1: you know, it can hit major cities. We wanted to
Speaker 1: talk a bit about the history of storm chasing and
Speaker 1: just that I've got some about the history of weather
Speaker 1: forecasting in general, just to kind of get an idea
Speaker 1: of how we've come to the point where we're at now. Now, Lauren,
Speaker 1: the very first date I have is eight forty nine.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything before that? What? Yes? That was
Speaker 1: the first first or corded account of a tornado. It
Speaker 1: was sure as windy, elt there goes Johnny. It's the
Speaker 1: village of Rosdala, Ireland. Um, sure as windy, there goes
Speaker 1: all Shaughnessy and the the the account said that it
Speaker 1: looked like a steeple of fire. Wow, that's poetic. We
Speaker 1: usually say that there's a tornado's coming at us right now.
Speaker 1: You hear that train of coming coming around the band? Um,
Speaker 1: so four, do you have anything else before the smarty pants?
Speaker 1: So in Professor Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian established a
Speaker 1: network of weather instruments along telegraph companies. So he partnered
Speaker 1: with telegraph companies and helped install these weather instruments at
Speaker 1: their offices in various places around the United States. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he used maps to coordinate between these these different
Speaker 1: telegraph companies, and so the observations they sent back he
Speaker 1: would end up note making notes on the map, and
Speaker 1: then from that he would start to create weather predictions.
Speaker 1: So that's some of the first weather forecasting in the
Speaker 1: United States, beyond just the my knee is aching, it's
Speaker 1: going to rain soon, or my dog is freaking out.
Speaker 1: That's so he starts doing this. But there was a
Speaker 1: little event in the United States that kind of disrupted
Speaker 1: the whole project. That was called the Civil War. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that kind of ended up taking over the telegraph lines
Speaker 1: for a while or mysterious reasons in eighteen sixty five. However,
Speaker 1: after the conclusion of the Civil War, Professor Henry then
Speaker 1: suggested that all meteorological observations reorganized under a single agency
Speaker 1: as a means of predicting storms and warning coastal shipping.
Speaker 1: So this was the very beginning of developing a national
Speaker 1: bureau to oversee this and study it and make forecasts.
Speaker 1: So eighteen seventy was when the United States formed the
Speaker 1: Weather Bureau, and that's a year Congress established a National
Speaker 1: Weather Warning Service under the Secretary of War. Now this
Speaker 1: is going to get interesting because this particular office ended
Speaker 1: up playing hop scotch with the various departments of government.
Speaker 1: It started off under the Secretary of War mainly because
Speaker 1: the military had the most advanced censors will not really
Speaker 1: even censors at this point, but just communication lines. So
Speaker 1: the military was put in charge of this. And also
Speaker 1: it was a matter of national security in many cases,
Speaker 1: so the Secretary of War oversaw this Weather Bureau department,
Speaker 1: and the Army Signal Corps assumed responsibility for taking observations
Speaker 1: at military installations and warning people of storms. Uh. About
Speaker 1: twenty years later, in eight nine, the Weather Service Organic
Speaker 1: Act transferred the Weather Reporting Services from the Secretary of
Speaker 1: War to the Department of Agriculture. Would not be the
Speaker 1: last time that it would jump ship. Meanwhile, in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy four, there's a report of John Mere crazy person,
Speaker 1: climbing the top of a hundred foot hauled Douglas spruce
Speaker 1: during a fierce windstorm and writing extensively about how really
Speaker 1: cool it was. Storm chaser, storm chaser, early storm chaser.
Speaker 1: Also in um in eighteen eighty four that August is
Speaker 1: the first known photograph of a tornado taken UM, specifically
Speaker 1: in South Dakota. Yeah, not from the inside. No. In
Speaker 1: eighteen nineties six, that was when the first hurricane warning
Speaker 1: service was established in the United States, And in nineteen
Speaker 1: o nine, the Weather Bureau began a regular program of
Speaker 1: balloon upper air observation. So this is sort of the
Speaker 1: beginning of weather balloons. There had been some work with
Speaker 1: it earlier, but this was the first time that the
Speaker 1: Bureau itself had started to fund a weather balloon program.
Speaker 1: And weather balloons are pretty much what they sound like.
Speaker 1: They are balloons that carry some form of sensor, whether
Speaker 1: it's just something to measure wind speed or humidity or
Speaker 1: barometric pressure or whatever. And the and send either record
Speaker 1: it and then you retreat the balloon and see what
Speaker 1: the recordings were, or if it has some sort of
Speaker 1: transfre modern ly, it will transmit back to a computer exactly, yeah,
Speaker 1: or at least a radio station, so you'll get some
Speaker 1: sort of report back on current atmospheric conditions and in
Speaker 1: the upper atmosphere where you know, you can't just go
Speaker 1: outside and say it's raining, you know, this is more
Speaker 1: like what are the directions of of airflow at higher
Speaker 1: elevation the temperature exactly. Uh. In n a Russian meteorologist
Speaker 1: attached a radio mediocraft to a sounding balloon. Oh there's
Speaker 1: some thunder out there, And that was the development of
Speaker 1: what we consider the modern weather balloons. So the previous
Speaker 1: weather balloons were kind of early attempts at using balloons
Speaker 1: together more information. But this is when we're actually starting
Speaker 1: to get information in real time radioed back very early
Speaker 1: on still and by six that's when the Weather Bureau
Speaker 1: began operation of weather balloons, collecting information such as atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity,
Speaker 1: wind direction, and speed. So by six we're starting to
Speaker 1: get a fairly robust weather reporting system. Uh. In ninety
Speaker 1: the weather breh jumps ship again and becomes part of
Speaker 1: the Department of Commerce, so once again playing hop scotch.
Speaker 1: Which is which is where it still is today, I believe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: although it's not the Weather Bureau anymore. We'll we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that in the second right. Also circuit circer World
Speaker 1: War two. Um, we started to see people flying into
Speaker 1: hurricanes directly to study them. Yes, we call these crazy people, uh,
Speaker 1: brave people who really were really were trying to advance science.
Speaker 1: They were not doing this, you know, Willy nilly. This
Speaker 1: was wow. There when that storm's coming right up on us,
Speaker 1: it's hitting rant forest. Uh, it's a tornador. Um, it's not,
Speaker 1: it's just a thunder storm. Hey guys, it's Jonathan here.
Speaker 1: I got a storm rolling in. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back. Is
Speaker 1: also when Roger Jensen started to become active, and he
Speaker 1: is one of the people that we referred to as
Speaker 1: an early storm chaser, right. I believe he chased his
Speaker 1: first storm in nineteen fifty three with his father. That's
Speaker 1: the date that I have. Oh yeah, I got I
Speaker 1: just had. Nineteen forties was when he started. But it's
Speaker 1: that was that was a very general kind of answer
Speaker 1: from the site I was looking at a time, maybe
Speaker 1: in fact more accurate and uh. Roger Jensen was was
Speaker 1: a Turkey processing plant worker and farmer who got deeply
Speaker 1: involved in the storm in the growing storm chasing movement.
Speaker 1: He was, yeah, really one of the founders there, right,
Speaker 1: another one being David Hold And you have some information
Speaker 1: about him, right, Um. I think he began in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five and following his his first experience there, he
Speaker 1: chased storms just all the time. He was from False Church, Virginia. Yes,
Speaker 1: and yeah, he was very much active in that, along
Speaker 1: with another UM scientist of one of the first storm
Speaker 1: chasing scientists, Neil Ward. Uh. Again in a very early
Speaker 1: storm chaser. Meanwhile, while all this storm chasing is starting,
Speaker 1: and it's just the earliest days of storm chasing. Back
Speaker 1: in ninety eight, there was an Air Force captain who
Speaker 1: later became a colonel named Robert Miller and also Major
Speaker 1: Ernest Fawbush, who were the first on record in the
Speaker 1: United States to successfully forecast a tornado. They actually forecasted
Speaker 1: in central Oklahoma. They were observing conditions that were very
Speaker 1: similar to a tornado that had hit the base four
Speaker 1: days earlier, and they said, these conditions are ripe for
Speaker 1: another tornado based on all that information, and so they
Speaker 1: actually began to discuss with the higher ranked members of
Speaker 1: the base there about whether or not they should take action. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: they decided that they should prepare for the potential of
Speaker 1: another tornado. So they acted as if another tornado was
Speaker 1: going to hit. The next day, another tornado did hit
Speaker 1: the base. That was two tornadoes that hit the very
Speaker 1: same base within the span of five days, which was,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty remarkable. I mean, you're talking about again,
Speaker 1: a massive area, and for two tornadoes to hit the
Speaker 1: same place within the span of a week is pretty rare.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that was the first successful forecasting of a
Speaker 1: tornado on record in the United States. UM and nine,
Speaker 1: the Weather Bureau provoked a ban on mentioning tornadoes forecasts.
Speaker 1: So you might wonder why was there a ban in place.
Speaker 1: Why could not weather forecasters say, hey, conditions are right
Speaker 1: for tornado. Here are the reasons. One, tornadoes at that time,
Speaker 1: in particular, were largely mysterious forces that were just kind
Speaker 1: of considered acts of God, that these were events that
Speaker 1: would come down strike with incredible fury, things that would
Speaker 1: say insight, large spread panic Exactly. The thought was that
Speaker 1: you would do more harm than good by saying, hey,
Speaker 1: there may be a tornado on the way, because no
Speaker 1: one knew exactly what they were supposed to do. By
Speaker 1: n fifty, they the Weather Bureau had decided that this
Speaker 1: was no longer a responsible course of action, and that,
Speaker 1: in fact, it would revoke that ban. By the way,
Speaker 1: the band was not always a formal band. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: was just highly discouraged from mentioning that conditions were right
Speaker 1: for a tornado. But at this point they said that
Speaker 1: that was no longer going to be an official policy.
Speaker 1: Uh in uh, you had mentioned that earlier about the
Speaker 1: storm chasers. That's also the same year when the Weather
Speaker 1: Bureau changed. It's uh, well, there was a reorganization of
Speaker 1: the Department of Commerce, and so that reorganization ended up
Speaker 1: creating something called the Environmental Science and Services Administration, or SA,
Speaker 1: and that organization changed the Weather Bureau to the National
Speaker 1: Weather Service, which will sound a lot more familiar I
Speaker 1: think to many of our listeners. Um. And in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration formed and replaced SA.
Speaker 1: So that's also known as Noah in o a A.
Speaker 1: We got to see the headquarters of Noah. We we
Speaker 1: visited Discovery headquarters up in Maryland right down the street. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we saw Noah, and then people from Noah invited us
Speaker 1: to go and see their stuff and talk to them,
Speaker 1: which we are totally going to do as soon as
Speaker 1: we can arrange it because that is mega awesome, cool,
Speaker 1: really exciting. UM. Part part of what Noah was doing
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies was establishing sky Warn, which is
Speaker 1: a volunteer program that that currently certainly at the time
Speaker 1: it did not have this money. It currently has like
Speaker 1: two thousand trained volunteers working across the country. Is a
Speaker 1: network to to observe and report storms. Yeah, in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two, you had the first federally funded storm chasing program.
Speaker 1: Where before we had storm chasers, but they were all
Speaker 1: acting more or less on their own. They had, you know,
Speaker 1: no official government backing, at least not from the federal level.
Speaker 1: And now that had changed in nineteen seventy two, you
Speaker 1: had a federally funded program. Uh, their first sampling of
Speaker 1: a tornado wouldn't happen until nineteen seventy three in Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: which as we know right there in the middle of
Speaker 1: tornado Alley. Uh Now, I'm going to skip a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of years here only to mention one of the
Speaker 1: most famous programs in storm chasing, which is Vortex. Vortex
Speaker 1: is an acronym. Of course, it stands for a Verification
Speaker 1: of the Origin of Rotation in Tornadoes experiment. So the
Speaker 1: E X and VORTEX is from X barriment that was
Speaker 1: led by Eric Resmussen of Noah's National Severe Storms Laboratory
Speaker 1: or in S. S. L UM And hey, I said
Speaker 1: laboratory instead of laboratory. You did it. I didn't even
Speaker 1: have to think about that time. Vortex, by the way,
Speaker 1: was not the only program called that. There was a
Speaker 1: second one, Vortex two, which launched in two thousand nine.
Speaker 1: But there was an unusually quiet tornadoes season in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine, which meant only one tornado was sampled that year.
Speaker 1: It was sampled in Lagrange, Wyoming, but it was the
Speaker 1: most intensively observed tornado at that time because there was
Speaker 1: so much equipment present at that moment. In two, Vortex
Speaker 1: to actually sampled quite a few super cells and a
Speaker 1: few week tornadoes as well, and gathered a lot of information. Now,
Speaker 1: during this span of time. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: other UH storm chasers that were active right UM. During
Speaker 1: during the nine seventies, UH David Hoadley founded storm Track magazine.
Speaker 1: It was becoming that hobbyist movement that we were talking
Speaker 1: about a little bit before. UM and and you know,
Speaker 1: he was publishing articles in National Geographic and Scientific American UM.
Speaker 1: There were programs on the History Channel in ABC. UM.
Speaker 1: It was becoming very much in the public eye, especially
Speaker 1: with the creation of these government agencies or the recreation
Speaker 1: of these government agents. Yeah. Yeah, some of these agencies.
Speaker 1: By the way, you know, we talked about it. You know,
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties, there were there was more than a
Speaker 1: hundred years of information gathered. UH. And it's interesting that
Speaker 1: it was kind of a you know, that chain was
Speaker 1: never broken. It It did transform quite a few times,
Speaker 1: but they remained like the information itself remained intact. And
Speaker 1: it really wasn't until we started getting um uh you know,
Speaker 1: small commercial or small non commercial vehicles, UM cars that
Speaker 1: people could go out and drive around in too to
Speaker 1: respond very quickly to the movement of a storm and
Speaker 1: UM and furthermore, the UH you know, communication technology advancing
Speaker 1: to the point where through through radio and the beginnings
Speaker 1: of satellite and cell phones and etcetera, that we can
Speaker 1: start to be responsive right right. In fact, we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk some more about that technology, the stuff that storm
Speaker 1: chasers use in order to track storms and to measure
Speaker 1: their impact. We'll also talk about how we classify tornadoes,
Speaker 1: which is an interesting story all on its own. But
Speaker 1: before we get into all of that, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick moment to thank our sponsor, Audible. Audible dot com
Speaker 1: is the leading provider of downloadable digital audio books and
Speaker 1: spoken word entertainment. Audible has over one hundred thousand titles
Speaker 1: to choose from to be downloaded to your iPod or
Speaker 1: MP three player. Go to audible podcast dot com slash
Speaker 1: tech stuff to get a free audio book download of
Speaker 1: your choice when you sign up today. Since we're talking
Speaker 1: about storms, here's my recommendation for an Audible book that
Speaker 1: you can get. In fact, if you sign up and
Speaker 1: you want that free book, this could be your first one.
Speaker 1: It's the first in a series. It is called storm Front,
Speaker 1: and it's the first book in the Dresden Files series
Speaker 1: that's written by Jim Butcher. My wife is a huge
Speaker 1: fan of the series. I am also a fan of
Speaker 1: the series. It is narrated by James Marsters, who are
Speaker 1: Buffy fans will recognize as spoke. Anyway, if you are
Speaker 1: interested in fantasy and sort of a noir feel and
Speaker 1: detective fiction, I highly recommend it check that out. Remember,
Speaker 1: just go to audible podcast dot com slash tech stuff
Speaker 1: to get that free audio book download of your choice. Alright,
Speaker 1: so back to tornadoes. Let's talk about how we measure
Speaker 1: how strong a tornado is. It's actually kind of an
Speaker 1: interesting story. Yeah, there's a scale called the Fugita scale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Fugita Pierson Tornado scale. Originally in its in its
Speaker 1: first format, it ranged from F zero up to theoretically
Speaker 1: F twelve. F twelve would have measured the wind speed
Speaker 1: at mock one, which is the speed of sound. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't like that idea. So well, uh, those
Speaker 1: people would say that that to really think of the
Speaker 1: scale and practical terms, you would go from F zero
Speaker 1: to F six, the idea being that anything over F
Speaker 1: six would have probably not we never would see wind
Speaker 1: speeds at that intenscy. Hey, man, don't argue with me, thunder.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying what I read. I really hope that's
Speaker 1: actually coming through on the mic, because if not, we
Speaker 1: sound really just crazy. Particularly so it's okay, there really
Speaker 1: is thunder out there. You might not hear it, but
Speaker 1: we do anyway. So the scale was proposed back in
Speaker 1: ninete and it was proposed by Professor Fujita and Alan Pearson,
Speaker 1: who was the director of the National Severe Storm Forecast
Speaker 1: Center at that time. And it's kind of a weird
Speaker 1: scale in the way. Um it's a scale that determines
Speaker 1: the tornado's strength based upon the amount of damage it did, right,
Speaker 1: And the problem being that, um, we've never really been
Speaker 1: very good at measuring how powerful a tornado is at
Speaker 1: the time, because first of all, they're pretty unpredictable. Second
Speaker 1: of all, they have been very quickly and end very quickly.
Speaker 1: And third of all, they're so powerful that our sentation
Speaker 1: gets pretty banged up. Yeah it gets it gets jankie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't really end up with like a working sensor
Speaker 1: after a tornado has finished playing with it in many
Speaker 1: In many cases, so getting a tornado's wind speed while
Speaker 1: the tornado is actually active is incredibly difficult. Like you said, Lauren,
Speaker 1: we don't even know where they're going to form or
Speaker 1: where they're going to go from and to that we
Speaker 1: don't know what path they'll take. Um So getting an
Speaker 1: accurate reading on wind speed while it's happening is really
Speaker 1: hard to do, right. And of course we can tell
Speaker 1: how fast they're traveling along the ground, how sure clouds
Speaker 1: are going in relation to the ground due to Doppler radar. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can. We can track a tornado and say, all right,
Speaker 1: the tornado itself traveled at a speed of sixteen miles
Speaker 1: per hour from west to east, like we can say
Speaker 1: that what's going on within it? It's very different, much
Speaker 1: more mysterious. So Professor Fagitta and Alan Pearson came up
Speaker 1: with a scale where they would look at the damage
Speaker 1: that was left after a tornado had passed through and
Speaker 1: said what speed of wind would be required in order
Speaker 1: to do this amount of damage. In other words, we
Speaker 1: were establishing how strong the tornado was after it had
Speaker 1: already happened by just looking at the devastation that had left. Now,
Speaker 1: the early scale was not terribly specific, and uh was
Speaker 1: not really or maybe I should say not terribly precise.
Speaker 1: There was an attempt to increase the precision and create
Speaker 1: the enhanced Fujita Pearson scale. Yeah, every first two thousand
Speaker 1: seven was when it was updated. We call e F
Speaker 1: not just F. So if you ever hear like an
Speaker 1: F five tornado, that's really using an outdated format. It's
Speaker 1: really e F five what we would say now And
Speaker 1: what does that translate to in terms that we mere
Speaker 1: mortals can understand? Well, First of all, the way they
Speaker 1: determine the scale is they look at the type of
Speaker 1: damage that's done and to the type of structures or
Speaker 1: landscape that it hits. So to really determine that, they
Speaker 1: look at, you know, if you say that a building
Speaker 1: was completely demolished, what was the type of building right now?
Speaker 1: How is how is it built, how sturdy was it
Speaker 1: in the first place, what materials went into making it exactly?
Speaker 1: And then and then and there's this really complex fact
Speaker 1: sheet that they have ranked out of different types of
Speaker 1: buildings and feel like twenty eight or twenty nine different
Speaker 1: designations for the type of building or landscape. And then
Speaker 1: they numerical scale for how much damage was done to
Speaker 1: from one day eight right, so eight being the greatest.
Speaker 1: So if you had like a concrete steel reinforced building
Speaker 1: and the devastation was at eight that was the most
Speaker 1: unimaginably powerful tornado that could have possibly hit us. And
Speaker 1: then here's the thing, there's no upper limit to this scale,
Speaker 1: because there may be tornadoes that can destroy the strongest
Speaker 1: stuff we build old, and since we're basing it on devastation,
Speaker 1: you can't get more devastating than total loss. Right, So
Speaker 1: if you have total loss, you essentially say that was
Speaker 1: a really powerful tornado. You know, you can't get more
Speaker 1: specific than that, because it could be that it's more
Speaker 1: powerful than our scale would even indicate. But after you've
Speaker 1: lost everything, that's kind of a moot point, right right,
Speaker 1: which is basically what they're saying with a with a
Speaker 1: e F five would be wind speeds over two hundred
Speaker 1: miles an hour, yeah, which, yeah, you get into a
Speaker 1: point where strong frame houses could be lifted into the
Speaker 1: air and carried a considerable distance before it was dropped
Speaker 1: again to oz for example. Yeah, So e F zero
Speaker 1: would be the lowest. That's between sixty five miles per
Speaker 1: hour winds. Then at e F one would be two
Speaker 1: miles per hour. Two goes up to a hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty five miles per hour, three goes up to a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five four goes up to two hundred
Speaker 1: and then anything over that. Yeah, five now, and in
Speaker 1: the old scale you had up to F six really
Speaker 1: was what was being described. And under that old scale
Speaker 1: and F six tornado was called an inconceivable tornado. Was
Speaker 1: it for real? Yes, that's amazing. I don't think that
Speaker 1: tornado means what you think it means, um. But at
Speaker 1: that point they said that the wind speeds were unlikely
Speaker 1: to happen at that intensity that was described as three
Speaker 1: D nineteen to three hundred and seventy nine miles per hour.
Speaker 1: I think the highest on record is three I believe,
Speaker 1: which is why would be the F six And that
Speaker 1: the idea here was that you might not even be
Speaker 1: able to tell that it was in F six tornado
Speaker 1: because anything from F five would leave essentially total devastation
Speaker 1: in its wake, right, so more total devastation, they said,
Speaker 1: Essentially you would have to verify it by looking at
Speaker 1: the evidence of the ground swirl pattern. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of crazy. So the point being that it's about the
Speaker 1: best we can do simply because again it's really hard
Speaker 1: to get a read on a tornado while it's happening.
Speaker 1: We really can only look at what happened afterward and say, well,
Speaker 1: based upon this, we deduce the tornado was x strong.
Speaker 1: You know. So with that in mind, what is the
Speaker 1: kind of gear that we use for storm chasing and
Speaker 1: measuring this kind of stuff? I mean, you've got your
Speaker 1: basic weather uh sensors, things like a barometer, which reads
Speaker 1: barometric pressure. In general, tornado's form after a drop in
Speaker 1: air pressure, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a
Speaker 1: sudden drop followed by a tornado. The drop can actually
Speaker 1: happen several days before a tornado forms if there's a
Speaker 1: low pressure system moving in on a broad scale. So
Speaker 1: it's also very difficult to measure barometric pressure within a
Speaker 1: tornado because the instruments very rarely survived. However, we will
Speaker 1: talk about uh someone who did manage to do that.
Speaker 1: That will be towards the end of our pot cast. Um.
Speaker 1: Then there's the anemometer, right, there's there's blade and anemometers
Speaker 1: and thermometers. And I had to I had to steady
Speaker 1: myself to say anemometer, you did, you didn't? He took
Speaker 1: a release afterwards, UM, And the analog blade ones are
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen a like a spoked series of
Speaker 1: arms or cups perched atop field cylinder. That's that is why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's designed to measure wind speed. So if you've ever
Speaker 1: seen one of those things, it looks like it's a
Speaker 1: little pin wheel type thing, sometimes horizontally aligned with little
Speaker 1: cups at the end of the arms. It's spinning around
Speaker 1: in a circle. Uh. This does not tell us anything
Speaker 1: about wind direction, but it does tell us about wind speed. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you're talking about how quickly is this thing spinning, and
Speaker 1: from that we can derive how how fast the wind
Speaker 1: is blowing. It only really works at the wind is
Speaker 1: blowing in a steady direction. If it starts blowing in
Speaker 1: various directions, that can really mess with the readings. But um,
Speaker 1: you know that that's how we kind of determine wind speed.
Speaker 1: Of course, thermometers tell us things about temperature, uh, and
Speaker 1: we can learn about humidity through various means. So getting
Speaker 1: to the basic gears of storm chasers. A lot of
Speaker 1: the basic gears the kind of stuff that you might
Speaker 1: have at your disposal already, things like laptop computers, which WiFi,
Speaker 1: digital cameras, video cameras that are both for video or
Speaker 1: for still photography, radio's walkie talkies, ham CB anything that
Speaker 1: they can get their hands on, police scanners, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. Stuff that allows them to keep track of
Speaker 1: the movement of weather systems. Uh, you know, anything that
Speaker 1: will give them the most up to date, mediate communication
Speaker 1: with anyone who is providing information about that storm. Right.
Speaker 1: And then you know, the video cameras are obviously there
Speaker 1: to document the actual storms, to watch their behavior, to
Speaker 1: take footage, possibly to sell that footage later on, or
Speaker 1: maybe it's just so that you can use it for
Speaker 1: research purposes. Uh, it could be a combination purposes, journalists
Speaker 1: purposes obviously. Yeah, and so those are those are your basic, uh,
Speaker 1: pieces of equipment. There's some interesting approaches to studying tornadoes,
Speaker 1: some of which are not necessarily used that frequently today.
Speaker 1: Did you run into the term tornado photo grammy tree?
Speaker 1: I did not photographm A tree is an older form
Speaker 1: and we don't tend to use it as much because
Speaker 1: it's not terribly precise. That's the use of film or
Speaker 1: video to determine the speed of movement of some kind
Speaker 1: of tracer element. So you take a tracer element as
Speaker 1: a point of reference. This is not necessarily something that
Speaker 1: you've introduced to the tornado. It may be something that
Speaker 1: the tornado has already picked up, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: a tractor, and it's usually a large piece of debris
Speaker 1: of or some sort of persistent element in the cloud itself.
Speaker 1: And from this you can start to infer what the
Speaker 1: wind speed is with varying and sometimes unknown reliability. So
Speaker 1: you analyze how the winds beat is by measuring the
Speaker 1: movement of this this persistent element. You know, you're how
Speaker 1: frequently is it coming around over and over? And from
Speaker 1: that you can sit there and say, well, the wind
Speaker 1: speed appears to be this. It was used more in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies and the nine eighties, but we kind
Speaker 1: of replace this with something that's far more reliable, namely
Speaker 1: Doppler radar. Uh. In fact, we have Doppler radar that's mobile.
Speaker 1: It's called Doppler on wheels or Dow Dow and Doppler
Speaker 1: on wheels. Those are the main tools used in the
Speaker 1: effort to determine the strength of tornado winds today. So
Speaker 1: that raises the question what is Doppler radar and how
Speaker 1: does that work? Well? The Doppler effect we we have
Speaker 1: talked about on the show before. But it is the
Speaker 1: effect of electromagnetic waves crunching up as something moves towards you,
Speaker 1: right right. It's same thing with sound, right, So it's
Speaker 1: not it's any kind of wave. If it's moving toward you,
Speaker 1: the frequency of the way of increases because the object
Speaker 1: is actually moving, uh, towards you. If it's moving away,
Speaker 1: the frequency decreases. Those waves along gate. So in sound
Speaker 1: and for once, it's amazing that we can't hear it
Speaker 1: because whenever we record tech stuff there seems to always
Speaker 1: be sirens going off in the background. But with sound,
Speaker 1: like if a police car has its siren running and
Speaker 1: it's coming towards you, you might hear a higher pitch
Speaker 1: and then after it passes you, it goes to a
Speaker 1: lower pitch. That's an example of the Doppler effect with
Speaker 1: sound waves. Same thing is true with electromagnetic waves. And
Speaker 1: radar uses electronomagnetic waves to kind of get an idea
Speaker 1: of where other objects are. Radio waves right, um, it's
Speaker 1: it will shoot a very quick like millisecond burst of
Speaker 1: radio waves called a pulse, called a pulse out you know,
Speaker 1: hopefully towards an object or sometimes just to see what's
Speaker 1: out there. And um, and then it will measure the
Speaker 1: length of time between when it's sent and when an
Speaker 1: echo comes back, and we'll also measure the the the
Speaker 1: Doppler effect, the phase is the phase of that of
Speaker 1: that wave. So between the phase of the wave and
Speaker 1: how long it took for the wave to return back
Speaker 1: from the echo of the wave to return back, it
Speaker 1: can determine the location and uh, whether or not something's
Speaker 1: moving toward it or away from it. And in a
Speaker 1: vague concept of how fast by kind of mathematically computing,
Speaker 1: if you measure between pulses, you start to get an idea, Oh, well,
Speaker 1: not only is it moving towards me, but it's moving
Speaker 1: towards me at this general speed. So double on wheels
Speaker 1: of course very useful because that means that you can
Speaker 1: move the the the radar around so that you can
Speaker 1: get a better idea of the speed of the storm
Speaker 1: itself and even get an idea of the strength of
Speaker 1: the tornado. Right. However, these these vehicles have to stay
Speaker 1: between two and eight miles away from a tornado to
Speaker 1: be effective, right, And it's mostly effective if it's encountering
Speaker 1: stuff that is fairly large in the in the relative
Speaker 1: scheme of things. So in other words, if there's precipitation,
Speaker 1: that's great. That means that there's more stuff for the
Speaker 1: radar waves to bounce off of, and that could be.
Speaker 1: If it's larger range ups, that's even better. If it's hailstones,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic because that gets a lot more for the Doppler.
Speaker 1: For anyone who's caught underneath it, hailstones are terrible. You
Speaker 1: do not want to be under them. But for for
Speaker 1: the purposes of radar, it works really, really well. And
Speaker 1: I think the strongest wind speed determined from a DOW
Speaker 1: is at least from the data I was able to find.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, some of this data is several years
Speaker 1: old because all of it comes from government sources and
Speaker 1: reports can take a while and to become publicly available.
Speaker 1: But the strongest I was able to find was three
Speaker 1: hundred and two miles per hour. So I saw I
Speaker 1: saw a report of one from Oklahoma in that that
Speaker 1: that recorded the world record speed of three Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my my latest records are later than your latest. Rick.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, Jonathan, again, storm has gone through. But now
Speaker 1: I kind of have to go outside and pick up
Speaker 1: some branches. So we're gonna take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. There's a specific type of radar
Speaker 1: that has been used for some storm tracking technology. It's
Speaker 1: called smart R, which is again yet another acronym, stands
Speaker 1: for Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research and Teaching Radar. This is
Speaker 1: one that is mainly used for research. It's used both
Speaker 1: for hurricanes and for tornadoes and UM. So you know
Speaker 1: that this combination of technology is used to really get
Speaker 1: as much information about strength and speed as we possibly
Speaker 1: can so that we can add to our body of knowledge. UM.
Speaker 1: And then there's some private chase teams and tours that
Speaker 1: have marine radars mounted on their vehicles. However, you should
Speaker 1: know this is decoration. Marine radars are useless when it
Speaker 1: comes to storm chasing and storm tracking. It's promotional purposes
Speaker 1: only they're not used in research UM and actually marine
Speaker 1: radar signals can interfere with research units like DOWS. So
Speaker 1: don't do it. Storm chasing companies, don't put marine radar
Speaker 1: on your trucks and then use them. Yeah, that's pretty silly.
Speaker 1: There are some projects that have been very interesting but
Speaker 1: not very successful. Uh. TOTO is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: TOTO standing for total BO Tornado Observatory now TOTO, of course,
Speaker 1: is also obviously a reference to fantastic documentary about a
Speaker 1: tourist from Kansas who visits an exotic land and kills
Speaker 1: the one of the leaders of that land, two of them. Actually.
Speaker 1: Total was developed by Dr Allen Bettard and Carl Ramsey
Speaker 1: in ninety nine, first deployed by them in nineteen d one,
Speaker 1: and basically it was an oil drum, like a fifty
Speaker 1: five gallon oil drum with some stuff in it, with
Speaker 1: some instruments in it. The idea that the tornado would
Speaker 1: pick this drum up and we would gather the information
Speaker 1: from the instruments inside, and hopefully the drum would protect
Speaker 1: the instruments so that the information would be usable. Right, So,
Speaker 1: how did that work out? Well? Um, it weighed four
Speaker 1: hundred pounds, which is or so and so not actually
Speaker 1: very well. I mean, first of all, you know they
Speaker 1: were working in the early nine eighties when, uh we
Speaker 1: did not have the kind of communication technology that would
Speaker 1: allow people to really effectively chase storms. So it was
Speaker 1: it was it was pretty much a crapshoot of whether
Speaker 1: or not they would leave this thing in a place
Speaker 1: that would were likely to get picked up. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: they don't have the benefit of a laptop with WiFi,
Speaker 1: so they have radio. They could have radio, so they
Speaker 1: could they could get radio updates, but without the ability
Speaker 1: to actually track a storm on a computer and see
Speaker 1: it and be able to anticipate where it's going to move,
Speaker 1: it made it much more difficult to get to the
Speaker 1: right place at the right time. Sure Also, it took
Speaker 1: thirty seconds to deploy from the back of a of
Speaker 1: a specially created truck um which is which sounds like
Speaker 1: a short period of time, but but that is tremendously
Speaker 1: long when a tornado is bearing down on you, yea,
Speaker 1: or if you're anticipating a tornado, keep in mind we
Speaker 1: were talking about that wall cloud, which was the indicator
Speaker 1: that a tornado could touch down within ten to twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: If it takes you half an hour to unpack your equipment,
Speaker 1: just finding out where the tornado might touch down and
Speaker 1: then getting the equipment out and set on the ground.
Speaker 1: First of all, it may be too late, maybe that
Speaker 1: the tornado has touched down while you were trying to
Speaker 1: get your your equipment out, in which case you may
Speaker 1: be in serious danger or things conditions could have changed
Speaker 1: to the point where the place where you thought was
Speaker 1: the perfect spot is no longer anywhere close to where
Speaker 1: the tornado may touch down. So it was very difficult.
Speaker 1: It as a surprise to no one. Was never really
Speaker 1: picked up by a tornado. Uh No, it did it.
Speaker 1: A tornado did run over it once in um when
Speaker 1: the NSSL had had taken over for it, and um,
Speaker 1: mostly the tornado just knocked it over and damaged the instruments.
Speaker 1: Yeah so, but then it served as inspiration for another
Speaker 1: fictional device, didn't, Yes, it did. Toto was the inspiration
Speaker 1: for Dorothy, which was the fictional device in the film Twister. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the movie that made us believe that a cow
Speaker 1: could be picked up by a tornado and still be
Speaker 1: perfectly cow like, willing to move at any rate. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and not turned into hamburger. Um. Yeah it was. Uh.
Speaker 1: Dorothy was the name of the device they wanted to
Speaker 1: deploy in the film and try and get it in
Speaker 1: the path of the tornado. It was inspired by the
Speaker 1: real world analog Toto in in reality, Toto was scrapped
Speaker 1: in ya um. But yeah. However, there are many other
Speaker 1: instruments that have been created for similar purposes. UM. One
Speaker 1: is called a turtle, which is a kind of hub
Speaker 1: cap looking little devices that are They were debuted, I
Speaker 1: believe in nineteen six, and we're we're on that beginning
Speaker 1: edge of digital technology. They were not meant to be
Speaker 1: picked up. They were actually designed as heavy, squat and aerodynamic,
Speaker 1: the idea being that they could withstand the the wind
Speaker 1: forces of a tornado so that you could retrieve them
Speaker 1: and find out all the information you needed things like temperature, pressure, humidity,
Speaker 1: and not just get picked up like the like total was.
Speaker 1: It was just meant to be there so that you
Speaker 1: can recover it afterward the tornado had passed through. There
Speaker 1: are also snails which are similar in appearance, but are
Speaker 1: outfitted with these seismic sensors because there was a theory
Speaker 1: at some point that UM, if we can study the
Speaker 1: vibrations that tornadoes create in the ground, it we would
Speaker 1: be able to learn new fun stuff about them. Huh interesting,
Speaker 1: I had not heard about that. UM also dellocams and
Speaker 1: Observation zero O Z s ozes. Okay, I just I
Speaker 1: just got that. I'm sorry, Dorothy Toto and OZ right UM,
Speaker 1: which are which are camera equipment that that has been
Speaker 1: designed to be put in the place, and I totally
Speaker 1: forgot to write down there's also munchkins, because, as it
Speaker 1: turns out, storm chasers get hungry and occasionally stop at
Speaker 1: Dunkin Donuts and they just order a bunch of those
Speaker 1: to eat while they're waiting. I just figured that we
Speaker 1: might as well keep on going down this Wizard of
Speaker 1: Oz route. So what about our vehicles? Yeah, okay, so
Speaker 1: you're talking about the TIV. Yes, the Tornado intercept vehicle. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's actually been a couple of these, um and in fact,
Speaker 1: there well, tornado intercept vehicle is kind of a generic
Speaker 1: name at this time. At this point, you're really talking
Speaker 1: about any kind of reinforced vehicle, but specifically we're talking
Speaker 1: about essentially, you take you take a pretty heavy vehicle,
Speaker 1: one that's already pretty rugged, and then you turn it
Speaker 1: into a reinforced possibly armor plated, uh possibly augmented vehicle,
Speaker 1: something that looks like it came out of Mad Max. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you might be wondering, you know who rules Bartertown by
Speaker 1: the time you see one of these things. Uh, they
Speaker 1: are meant to withstand high wind speeds, hail, massive, massive trauma,
Speaker 1: they're reinforced, and sometimes they have hydraulic panels that can
Speaker 1: actually extend down to the sides of the vehicle. The
Speaker 1: idea being that if you extend the hydraulic panel so
Speaker 1: that it goes from the ground and and leaves no
Speaker 1: space under the vehicle, then you can't have wind sweeping
Speaker 1: underneath the vehicle and and lift it off or push
Speaker 1: it off. It's it's perch um. Some of them even
Speaker 1: have stabilizing jacks that will that will extend down and
Speaker 1: into the ground and stable again, stabilize this so that
Speaker 1: when heavy wind hits it, it doesn't rock over and
Speaker 1: and tilt over and fall right um. The tip too
Speaker 1: specifically was was was one that was created that wighed
Speaker 1: about eight tons. Yeah, that's a pretty hefty vehicle and
Speaker 1: also usually has has windows designed so that someone with
Speaker 1: a camera can get as many different angles as possible.
Speaker 1: The the the original was created by one Sean Casey,
Speaker 1: who was an Imax cinematographer who was working towards some
Speaker 1: some documentary pieces. I remember seeing bits from that. I
Speaker 1: never got to see the full I assume they eventually
Speaker 1: had a more, probably more than one documentary based on this,
Speaker 1: but I do remember seeing excerpts of this, and they
Speaker 1: were pretty fantastic. I also remember seeing at least one
Speaker 1: clip where the crew was concerned that his desire to
Speaker 1: get the best footage was possibly a little reckless. That's
Speaker 1: probably the best way for me to put it. I
Speaker 1: have no doubt that that that could be a thing
Speaker 1: that could have happened. Well, what kind of information have
Speaker 1: storm chasers gathered? Mainly we're talking about atmospheric conditions, things
Speaker 1: like the rotation of the clouds, getting more information about that,
Speaker 1: more information about the actual sequence of events that leads
Speaker 1: up to tornado formation, the behavior of the tornadoes themselves,
Speaker 1: the strength of the tornado. Uh, the you know, We've
Speaker 1: got some information about barometric pressure, some things about temperature,
Speaker 1: wind speeds and all this kind of stuff. Humidity. It's
Speaker 1: really just trying to get as much data as possible
Speaker 1: and sift through it to learn what is it that
Speaker 1: really makes these things happen? Right, Because some of the
Speaker 1: leading theories for a long time had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with um with temperature differences, right up until we
Speaker 1: got some data in from tornadoes that said that temperature
Speaker 1: differences in in in airflow do not have to exist
Speaker 1: for a tornado to be created, right, doesn't have that's
Speaker 1: not not a not a necessary factor, right, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's kind of one of those
Speaker 1: things where the more we learn, the more we realize
Speaker 1: that we have to learn, and it is so difficult
Speaker 1: to get good readings. Yeah, and we will come so dangerous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: We're talking about such huge forces here that getting a
Speaker 1: good reading is just, uh, it's risky and a lot
Speaker 1: of the stuff we've developed just can't live up, can't
Speaker 1: hold up to those kind of forces. It can, as
Speaker 1: we said, be very financially viable. Um one war in
Speaker 1: Fadely is a kind of rock star storm chaser whose
Speaker 1: photos of storms can sell for over ten tho dollars
Speaker 1: a piece. Yeah, yeah, which has inspired a lot of
Speaker 1: people to try and follow in his footsteps. In fact,
Speaker 1: that's one of the big controversies. And we can go
Speaker 1: ahead and move into the controversy of storm chasing. One
Speaker 1: of them is that with documentaries with reality television, I mean,
Speaker 1: we do have storm chasers on Discovery. We've got or
Speaker 1: we had I believe it was. It was ended in
Speaker 1: two eleven. Yeah, So, but but there's been some controversy
Speaker 1: that these sort of things have inspired lots and lots
Speaker 1: of people to either pursue it as a hobby or
Speaker 1: go into the tourism trade, that sort of stuff, and
Speaker 1: that that self can add to the already significant danger
Speaker 1: of storm chasing for research purposes or even as a profession,
Speaker 1: especially considering the fact that if you've got if you
Speaker 1: do have research professionals who are out there trying to
Speaker 1: be safe, and you get in their way bad times
Speaker 1: for everybody you can, you can cause traffic jams right
Speaker 1: when people need to have an open escape route in
Speaker 1: case the storm changes dramatically, and that can happen. Storm
Speaker 1: storms can travel in one direction and then suddenly veer
Speaker 1: off and you need to be nimble enough to be
Speaker 1: able to respond to that. But if you've got a
Speaker 1: line of cars behind you and that's the only way out,
Speaker 1: then you're kind of stuck. It also means adding the
Speaker 1: danger of first responders needing to get to locations after
Speaker 1: a tornado has passed through. So it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that has raised some concerns because legally speaking, there
Speaker 1: are no rules or laws regarding storm chasing apart from
Speaker 1: obeying traffic laws and things like trespassing. Clearly, you are
Speaker 1: not supposed to trespass on people's property. You aren't supposed to, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, drive the wrong way down the street, that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But beyond that, there's not really anything.
Speaker 1: You know, there's nothing illegal about storm chasing, but there
Speaker 1: have been some discussions about that. UM and in we
Speaker 1: had a tragedy in which three storm chasers, famous ones,
Speaker 1: Tim Samaris, Paul samarrass Son and Carl Young. Uh, they
Speaker 1: died in h an accident. They were caught in a
Speaker 1: tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma. This was on May thirty
Speaker 1: one and ending. They had been part of the Discovery
Speaker 1: show storm Chasers and full full disclosure, full disclosure. We
Speaker 1: are hastof works as a part company Discovery. Now we
Speaker 1: should also say that that they were experienced storm chasers,
Speaker 1: and they were. They were widely regarded as responsible members
Speaker 1: of the community, and they had provided quite a bit
Speaker 1: of scientific research. Absolutely. Tim in fact founded twist decks,
Speaker 1: which which is similar to vortex. It's it's an acronym
Speaker 1: for the tactical weather instrumented sampling in Tornado's experiment. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had an engineering background, uh, and he successfully deployed
Speaker 1: a turtle that recorded the barometric pressure of two different tornadoes.
Speaker 1: One in two thousand three recorded a barometric drop in
Speaker 1: pressure of forty mill of bars, and another one another probe,
Speaker 1: recorded a one d milli bar drop in a violent
Speaker 1: tornado in South Dakota. UM Later on, other turtles would
Speaker 1: record more baro metic pressure, but his was the first
Speaker 1: one to do that. So he was really contributing to
Speaker 1: the scientific knowledge of tornadoes. And so, uh, their deaths
Speaker 1: were very tragic obviously, and also raised up a conversation
Speaker 1: about is storm chasing something responsible? Is it okay? Should
Speaker 1: should there be for other things, for for non human
Speaker 1: ways to collect the stata? And and you know, it's
Speaker 1: one of those things again where there's There's not been
Speaker 1: any official movement as far as I'm aware, but people
Speaker 1: like the Kansas Emergency Management Association president Brian Stone said
Speaker 1: it was worth looking into establishing at least some rules
Speaker 1: to guide storm chasers, if not formal laws, at least
Speaker 1: uh kind of a code really that storm chasers need
Speaker 1: to follow. Now, keep in mind, Tim Samaris and his
Speaker 1: crew were experts, I mean they were they were known
Speaker 1: for being very safety conscious. So this really shows how unpredictable.
Speaker 1: These storms can be and even if you are at
Speaker 1: the top of your game and you are very careful,
Speaker 1: tragedy can strike. Yeah, supposedly the storm that that they
Speaker 1: were killed and killed another ten people out in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: and supposedly had one of those very quick turns that
Speaker 1: no one could have predicted. They probably blocked their escape routes.
Speaker 1: And the National Weather Service does not endorse storm chasing
Speaker 1: because of the risk involved. However, they do welcome the
Speaker 1: reports that storm chasers bring in. So it's kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those things where they say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can't we can't say go out and be a
Speaker 1: storm chaser, but we will say that the data we
Speaker 1: get is invaluable. Yes, we can't put a price tag
Speaker 1: on that because it's it's helping us understand these systems
Speaker 1: and that's really the best way we know of doing it.
Speaker 1: And through sky Warn. In fact, they will conduct spot
Speaker 1: or training classes across the United States if you're if
Speaker 1: you are very interested in storm chasing, I would recommend
Speaker 1: not probably going on one of the tours. I don't
Speaker 1: think they're necessarily responsible, but um, you can't. You know,
Speaker 1: some may be very good at following safety rules and
Speaker 1: some maybe a little more lax in that. It's hard
Speaker 1: to say. It's hard to say, but but Sky Warren
Speaker 1: will will try. Yeah, you can do it. You can
Speaker 1: do this in the most responsible and safe way possible,
Speaker 1: which is that's the best thing. I mean, this is
Speaker 1: your passion, and this is you want to contribute to
Speaker 1: the scientific knowledge. I mean, I find that admirable. I
Speaker 1: personally also think it's crazy because I I've know well well,
Speaker 1: like I said, Lauren, and I can talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about our experience living through tornadoes. Uh, and I
Speaker 1: would never ever ever want to invite that experience on
Speaker 1: me again if I can avoid it. What what? What?
Speaker 1: What did happen? Okay, all right, well I can talk
Speaker 1: about that. So. I grew up in northeast Georgia, near
Speaker 1: a city called Gainesville, which actually has a history of
Speaker 1: tornado problems. There was a tornado that moved through early
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century and laid the city to waste.
Speaker 1: I mean, it completely destroyed Gainesville. My grandfather worked in
Speaker 1: a textile mill in New Holland, Georgia, which is just
Speaker 1: outside of Gainesville. And uh, he tells or he told
Speaker 1: the story he's passed on now, but he told a
Speaker 1: story about how working in the mill he was, you know,
Speaker 1: the tornado was bearing down the mill and he was
Speaker 1: moving toward the staircase to get down to a safe level,
Speaker 1: and as he was hitting the staircase, the roof of
Speaker 1: the building ripped off because of this tornado, the force
Speaker 1: of this wind. And uh, this was the same tornado
Speaker 1: that essentially leveled the city. When I was growing up,
Speaker 1: we had several tornadoes passed over the area of town
Speaker 1: I lived in, which is called Oakwood, Georgia. I grew
Speaker 1: up there, and I can remember like there were there
Speaker 1: were houses that were within just a very short walk,
Speaker 1: like you just walked up a hill and you could
Speaker 1: see them that were completely leveled by tornadoes on a
Speaker 1: couple of occasions. And I mean I remember huddling with
Speaker 1: my family at the base of our house, Um, not
Speaker 1: even sure if our house was going to be hit
Speaker 1: by these things. And uh, we had tornadoes passed directly
Speaker 1: over us where you know, sometimes a tornado will touch
Speaker 1: down and then lift up and touched down again. In fact,
Speaker 1: there's even an argument about whether or not that counts
Speaker 1: as two separate tornadoes or the same one we've had
Speaker 1: that happened where a tornado went directly over our house,
Speaker 1: where it lifted up and then set back down a
Speaker 1: little bit further out. So um, you know, as a kid,
Speaker 1: that was definitely like that was a life defining experience,
Speaker 1: to the point where I had trouble with storms for
Speaker 1: a while after I was after that. These days storms
Speaker 1: don't bother me so much. I can. I can handle
Speaker 1: that just fine. But if it starts turning like ominous,
Speaker 1: if I start noticing those little warning signs, I take cover,
Speaker 1: because it is serious business. I mean, it is absolutely
Speaker 1: terrifying to live through. Sure, yeah, I am. My My
Speaker 1: experience is a lot more spotty than that. I remember
Speaker 1: being maybe maybe about five years old, and my my
Speaker 1: mother and U are extremely dedicated black Labrador retriever UM
Speaker 1: hurting me down into the basement and U. But I
Speaker 1: think that mostly by the time we got there, like
Speaker 1: by the time we heard about it and got down there,
Speaker 1: the radio is already calling it off. So um. And
Speaker 1: and this is the to the two types of warnings
Speaker 1: that you may have heard of and had a tiny
Speaker 1: bit of confusion about, because I don't feel like they're
Speaker 1: very well publicized the differences between them all the time.
Speaker 1: Tornado watch is issued by the n o A a
Speaker 1: UH Storm Prediction Center meteorologists and and they are watching
Speaker 1: the entire United States all the time. UM. Tornado warning, however,
Speaker 1: is issued by a local n o A a UH
Speaker 1: National Weather Service forecast office who is watching your designated
Speaker 1: area all the time and UH the warning indicates that
Speaker 1: there are spotters who have seen a touchdown and that
Speaker 1: you need to get to safety. The the watch is
Speaker 1: more that there are conditions that are favorable for a tornado.
Speaker 1: Tornado could could form under such conditions. Yeah, I've I've
Speaker 1: seen so many of both. UM. It's one of the
Speaker 1: one of the risks of living in the Southeast United States,
Speaker 1: not again, not nearly as prone to tornadoes as other
Speaker 1: parts in the nation, which can get them even more
Speaker 1: regularly than we do. And I thought i'd close out.
Speaker 1: This is something that another storm chaser had said about
Speaker 1: the situation with with Tim Samaras and his son Paul
Speaker 1: and Carl Young. His name is Renny vander Wedge, and
Speaker 1: I apologize if I have butchered that name, but he
Speaker 1: had this to say, and I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: And there's actually quite a bit that he has written
Speaker 1: about the storm chasing in general. But I thought this,
Speaker 1: this really bears attention in our podcast, So he said.
Speaker 1: Many storm chasers do a lot of good. Some are
Speaker 1: researchers trying to understand why some storms produced tornadoes and
Speaker 1: others do not. Tim Samaras, for example, combined his background
Speaker 1: and engineering and whether to invent devices for measuring conditions
Speaker 1: inside a tornado. His research has been value able. Other
Speaker 1: researchers use mobile radar units to measure precipitation and wind
Speaker 1: inside a tornado from close range to gain a better
Speaker 1: understanding of how tornadoes develop. Other chasers are simply out
Speaker 1: there for the thrill of chasing, or to capture video
Speaker 1: to sell to media outlets. But as tornado video has
Speaker 1: become plentiful on YouTube and other websites, chasers have had
Speaker 1: to get closer than ever to get the kind of
Speaker 1: footage that will earn them a paycheck. They often find
Speaker 1: themselves in the bears cage, which is chaser lingo for
Speaker 1: the part of the storm where tornado forms. Some have
Speaker 1: built vehicles to drive directly into a twister. This carries
Speaker 1: enormous risk. Now, he teaches meteorology and bring students with
Speaker 1: him on trips where they they observe these stormfronts and
Speaker 1: the weather conditions, so that the meteorologists have direct experience
Speaker 1: with this before they go on to whatever their careers are.
Speaker 1: But I thought it was really interesting to have a
Speaker 1: professional opinion added in there, because of course, like we
Speaker 1: said at the very top of the show, this is
Speaker 1: and we've repeated several times, this is serious, dangerous business. Uh.
Speaker 1: It's not something for just a casual attempt. You know,
Speaker 1: you definitely want experienced people around you. If you are
Speaker 1: interested in the field, that's amazing, but definitely seek out
Speaker 1: training and make sure that you're following this as as
Speaker 1: many safety procedures as you can because this is this
Speaker 1: is deadly stuff. And that wraps up this classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If you
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future topics of tech Stuff, go
Speaker 1: ahead and reach out to me on Twitter or Facebook.
Speaker 1: The handle for both of those is tech Stuff hs
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Speaker 1: e