Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from stuff Com.
Speaker 1: Hey there, everyone, and welcome to text Uff. I'm Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland and I'm Lauren Vocal Valley. Today we're all going
Speaker 1: to talk about storm chasers and what they do and
Speaker 1: the technology they use to do their jobs. And just
Speaker 1: so you guys know, a couple of things you want
Speaker 1: to get all the way. First of all, we're recording
Speaker 1: this while there's an actual storm going on outside the office.
Speaker 1: This isn't a joke, hopefully not a tornado involving storm.
Speaker 1: We'll hear some thunder in the background. It's um atmosphere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't actually added in post. It's really happening right now,
Speaker 1: So just so you guys know that. And the second
Speaker 1: thing we want to mention is we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: a lot about storm chasing in general. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: our warning, which we will be repeating at the end
Speaker 1: of the episode. Storm chasing is seriously dangerous business. This
Speaker 1: is not obvioust thing, um though some people treated that way.
Speaker 1: It is you are putting yourself at serious risk when
Speaker 1: you are encountering major storm fronts, including but not limited
Speaker 1: to tornadoes. So we want to 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 uh, the number of tornadoes in the
Speaker 1: United States has increased since the nineteen sixties, but the
Speaker 1: number of deaths in the US has declined due to
Speaker 1: these brave people's work. Right, we're learning more about these
Speaker 1: systems and how to predict them. Now, granted, prediction is
Speaker 1: about all we can do because these are major storm
Speaker 1: systems that we still don't understand. So much energy and
Speaker 1: the energy and these storm systems rivals that of a
Speaker 1: nuclear bomb. They can they can reach above three miles
Speaker 1: and now, yeah, this is this is serious business. So
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about what storm chasers are
Speaker 1: and what they do. So they do tend to fall
Speaker 1: into three major categories. You've got your scientific researchers, which
Speaker 1: I would say are probably the majority of well until recently, anyway,
Speaker 1: we're the majority of storm chasers. These are the men
Speaker 1: and women who dedicate their their lives to studying storm systems,
Speaker 1: gathering data, and trying to learn everything we can about
Speaker 1: them so that are forecast models get more and more precise,
Speaker 1: so that we can increase the levels of safety not
Speaker 1: just of where we build things, but how we build
Speaker 1: them 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. They'll 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 one 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. Uh.
Speaker 1: That creates some randomness in this event which would cause
Speaker 1: them to form in one case and not in 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 has spawned from a series 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's a violently rotating column
Speaker 1: of air pendant from a cumuli form cloud or underneath
Speaker 1: a cumuli form cloud, and often but not always visible
Speaker 1: as a funnel cloud. So literally, in order for a
Speaker 1: vortex to be classified as a tornado, it must actually
Speaker 1: be in contact with the ground and otherwise otherwise it
Speaker 1: is just a funnel right, yeah, So it has to
Speaker 1: be in contact with the ground, has to be from
Speaker 1: the ground all the way up to the cloud base.
Speaker 1: If it's not all the way 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 based to the ground for it
Speaker 1: to actually be a tornado. Now, usually within a tornado,
Speaker 1: you've got wind shear 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 it. 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 hard
Speaker 1: and 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 as it's not. It's not vertical yet
Speaker 1: it's so it's a messo cyclone. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: what a tornado would look like if you put it
Speaker 1: on its side up in the clouds, all right, and
Speaker 1: then you get these these wind sheer uh factors, These
Speaker 1: these sharp moving horizontal winds that can telt the messo
Speaker 1: cyclone so that it is upright. And if it does
Speaker 1: in fact go upright and the base of it touches
Speaker 1: the ground, that's when you get your tornado. And like
Speaker 1: I said, you can have a very similar set of
Speaker 1: circumstances that in one case spawn a tornado and then
Speaker 1: another do not. Right right, Um, what what what helps
Speaker 1: with the tornado is when you get these inflow bands,
Speaker 1: which are which are ragged bands of cumulus clouds that
Speaker 1: that um, extend out away, usually to the south or
Speaker 1: southeast here in the northern hemisphere. Um and uh. It
Speaker 1: suggests that the storm is is gathering low level air
Speaker 1: from several miles away and and sucking in that that
Speaker 1: hot moist air that is going to be fueling the storm.
Speaker 1: Right now, I've heard another term when it comes to tornadoes,
Speaker 1: and I wonder if you actually know anything about it,
Speaker 1: because it intrigues me, it tasks me. And this is
Speaker 1: the term beaver tail. A beaver's tail, Am I am?
Speaker 1: I crazy? Or is that associated with tornadoes? Now? This
Speaker 1: is the thing. It's it's a smooth, flat cloud band
Speaker 1: that that extends again in the northern hemisphere from the
Speaker 1: from the eastern edge of the storm going out to
Speaker 1: the east or southeast or eastern northeast. I'm sorry, um
Speaker 1: and uh it It also just suggest the presence of rotation,
Speaker 1: got you. Yeah. So, so in these storm systems, you
Speaker 1: have areas where there is precipitation and you have areas
Speaker 1: where there's no precipitation. I think the beaver's tail is
Speaker 1: in the no precipitation area. So it's kind of one
Speaker 1: of the borders of these storm systems. So if you
Speaker 1: see a storm system that has several of these indicators.
Speaker 1: That's one of those those warning signs to say this
Speaker 1: is the sort of situation in which tornadoes can form. Right,
Speaker 1: all of these situations can happen in completely benign, regular
Speaker 1: old thunderstorms that nearly terrify your dog. And uh, wall
Speaker 1: cloud is another one. That's a that's a cloud that
Speaker 1: seems like it's descending from the bottom of the storm.
Speaker 1: Um and those are actually one of the more present
Speaker 1: that that's like your ten to twenty minute warning. If
Speaker 1: a tornado is going to form there, you've got about
Speaker 1: ten to twenty minutes from when that's when that should Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's scary stuff. And uh so when this tornado
Speaker 1: is forming, you get an updraft, all right, and that
Speaker 1: updress starts to pull in low level air from several
Speaker 1: miles around. I mean, we're talking a huge system here,
Speaker 1: and that low level air is pulled up through the
Speaker 1: updraft from the rain area, and the rain cooled air
Speaker 1: is incredibly humid, Like you were saying, that moisture in
Speaker 1: the rain cooled air quickly condenses, and uh that's where
Speaker 1: you get that wall cloud. And then you know, you
Speaker 1: know that they're the conditions are ripe for a tornado
Speaker 1: to form. Uh. And then you've got the rear flank
Speaker 1: down draft or RFD and that's that's this downward rush
Speaker 1: of air from from the back end of the storm.
Speaker 1: That's a that's descending along with the funnel. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this this looks like it's a bright spot, right,
Speaker 1: that's what that's what this usually looks like. It's usually
Speaker 1: to the rear, and in the northern hemisphere it's the
Speaker 1: southwest side, which I think actually leads to a wives tale.
Speaker 1: There's an old wives tale that if you were to
Speaker 1: if a tornado is approaching and you have a basement,
Speaker 1: you should go and huddle in the south west corner,
Speaker 1: the idea being that that would be the safest way
Speaker 1: from the path of the tornado. But as it turns out,
Speaker 1: tornado pathways are not nearly so predictable. They are very
Speaker 1: unpredictable in fact. And um and and also that that
Speaker 1: clear spot just doesn't have rain in it, it's still
Speaker 1: actually a space of extreme wind activity. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: then you've got the funnel itself. Um and which the
Speaker 1: visibility of a tornado will often depend upon how much
Speaker 1: material isn't it sometimes If usually if it's if it's
Speaker 1: a little bit of material, that's when it's it's most visible.
Speaker 1: That's when you can really see the definition of the
Speaker 1: funnel cloud. If it's hits some dust or something right right,
Speaker 1: if it's got some debris in there. When it's got
Speaker 1: a lot, it makes it hard to see because it
Speaker 1: just it looks like a massive darkness coming at you.
Speaker 1: By the way, we'll probably have some personal stories that
Speaker 1: we can relate a little bit because Lauren and I
Speaker 1: have both experienced being through tornadoes. Um, you know, I
Speaker 1: I grew up in Northeast Georgia and I grew up
Speaker 1: in Ohio, and both areas have have been the site
Speaker 1: of tornado activity. Granted not nearly at least in Northeast Georgia.
Speaker 1: It's not nearly to the same extent as places in
Speaker 1: the Midwest that are in what's called tornado Alley, but
Speaker 1: we still get quite a few. Yeah, speaking of tornado Alley,
Speaker 1: the United States has or North America in general, has
Speaker 1: has the most tornadoes of any place on the planet,
Speaker 1: about about twelve hundred per year UM. And this is
Speaker 1: because of of what's called a dry line, which is
Speaker 1: um a center of 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,
Speaker 1: So you know, a lot of people will say that
Speaker 1: tornadoes are kind of the result of cold Canadian air
Speaker 1: mixing with the warm, moist air of the Caribbean. And
Speaker 1: then the party gets together, and the snowbirds come down
Speaker 1: and the crazy steel drums come up, and then we
Speaker 1: have a big old party in the form of tornado.
Speaker 1: And any storm institute will tell you that's gross, really simplification,
Speaker 1: that's not really that thing. Tornadoes do occur in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world. Absolutely, you find them in pretty
Speaker 1: much everywhere. It's just that the frequency is much greater
Speaker 1: in the United States after the US. North America, I
Speaker 1: should say, yes, after the US, Argentina and Bangladesh have
Speaker 1: the next two highest proportions of tornadoes in per year.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, they happen everywhere, right, So a lot
Speaker 1: of the conversation we're going to have is again, and
Speaker 1: this comes as a surprise to nobody who's been listening
Speaker 1: to tech stuff for a long time going to be
Speaker 1: very US centric, but that kind of makes sense because
Speaker 1: North America does play home to tornadoes, we get a
Speaker 1: pass in this particular instance. It trusts us if you
Speaker 1: if you live in a place that is very, very
Speaker 1: infrequently hit by tornadoes, just listen and enjoy as we
Speaker 1: discussed the terrifying experience that we have gone through as
Speaker 1: tornadoes have uh you know, rereaked havoc in our homeland. Um.
Speaker 1: In fact, we can go ahead and say this, we
Speaker 1: live in Atlanta right now. UM. And Atlanta a few
Speaker 1: years ago was hit by some by by a pretty
Speaker 1: massive tornado that did some major damage in downtown went
Speaker 1: right through downtown Atlanta, which is unusual. You don't frequently
Speaker 1: have tornadoes passed through metropolitan areas. And in fact, there
Speaker 1: were some theories for a while that the the island effect,
Speaker 1: the heat island effect of cities might have something to
Speaker 1: do with tornado formation. But it may just be that's
Speaker 1: the odds, you know, just one of those things where
Speaker 1: it's kind of pretty small. Yeah, when you when you
Speaker 1: when you're talking about the grand scheme of things in
Speaker 1: the city is a tiny target. And when you talk
Speaker 1: about the entire United States, UM, but yeah, one went
Speaker 1: through downtown Atlanta and there for for months. There were
Speaker 1: major buildings in Atlanta that had temporary covers over a
Speaker 1: lot of windows, like high rise building, skyscraper buildings had
Speaker 1: these these temporary covers on their windows because they had
Speaker 1: to start replacing all of them, some of which are
Speaker 1: in buildings that have very um specific types of surfaces,
Speaker 1: like we have one hotel in downtown Atlanta that's essentially
Speaker 1: a Celin. It's beautiful, but it does mean that replacing
Speaker 1: the glass is somewhat difficult. And there were entire neighborhoods
Speaker 1: east of downtown that were just laid to waste, including
Speaker 1: some losts that had just been built. They had been
Speaker 1: converted from old warehouses and old manufacturing plants. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: they had just been converted into the lofts and then destroyed.
Speaker 1: Um that's all been rebuilt now, but you know, it
Speaker 1: can hit major cities. We wanted to talk a bit
Speaker 1: about the history of storm chasing and just that I've
Speaker 1: got some about the history of weather forecasting in general,
Speaker 1: just to kind of get an idea of how we've
Speaker 1: come to the point where we're at now. Now, Lauren,
Speaker 1: the very first date I have is eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: Do you have anything before that? What? Yes? That was
Speaker 1: the first first recorded account of a tornado. It was
Speaker 1: sure as windy out there, Johnny is in the village
Speaker 1: of m Rosdala, Ireland. Sure there it goes all shaughnessy
Speaker 1: and the the The account said that it looked like
Speaker 1: a steeple of fire. Wow, that's poetic. We usually say
Speaker 1: that there's a tornado. It's coming at us right now.
Speaker 1: You hear that train of coming coming around the band? Um,
Speaker 1: So do you have anything else before? A 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 the He used maps to coordinate between these these
Speaker 1: different telegraph companies, and so the observations they sent back
Speaker 1: he would end up not making notes on the map,
Speaker 1: and 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 mynee is aching, it's going
Speaker 1: to rain soon, or my dog is freaking out. So
Speaker 1: he starts doing this, But there was a little event
Speaker 1: in the United States that kind of disrupted the whole project.
Speaker 1: That was called the Civil War. Yeah, yeah, that kind
Speaker 1: of ended up taking over the telegraph lines for a
Speaker 1: while for mysterious reasons. In eighteen sixty five, however, after
Speaker 1: the conclusion of the Civil War, Professor Henry then suggested
Speaker 1: that all meteorological observations reorganized under a single agency as
Speaker 1: a means of predicting storms and warning coastal shipping. So
Speaker 1: this was the very beginning of developing a National Knowle
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 same 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 nine the Weather Service Organic Act
Speaker 1: transferred the weather reporting services from the Secretary of War
Speaker 1: to the Department of Agriculture. Would not be the last
Speaker 1: time that it would jump ship. Meanwhile, in eighteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: there's a report of John Mere crazy person, climbing the
Speaker 1: top of a hundred foot tall Douglas spruce during a
Speaker 1: fierce windstorm and writing extensively about how really cool it was.
Speaker 1: Storm chaser, storm chaser, early storm chaser. Also in UM
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty four. That August is the first known
Speaker 1: photograph of a tornado taken UM, specifically in South Dakota. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not from the inside, no, no. Uh. In eighteen nineties six,
Speaker 1: that was when the first hurricane warning service was established
Speaker 1: in the United States, and in nineteen o nine the
Speaker 1: Weather Bureau began a regular program of balloon upper air observations.
Speaker 1: So this is sort of the beginning of weather balloons.
Speaker 1: There had been some work with it earlier, but this
Speaker 1: was the first time that the Bureau itself had started
Speaker 1: to fund a weather balloon program. And weather balloons are
Speaker 1: pretty much what they sell. They are balloons that carry
Speaker 1: some form of sensor, whether it's just something to measure
Speaker 1: wind speed or humidity or barometric pressure or whatever, and
Speaker 1: then send either record it and then you retreat the
Speaker 1: balloon and see what the recordings were, or if it
Speaker 1: has some sort of transfore modern lee, it will transmit
Speaker 1: back to a computer exactly, yeah, or at least a
Speaker 1: radio station, so you'll get some sort of report back
Speaker 1: on current atmospheric conditions. And in the upper atmosphere where
Speaker 1: you know, you can't just go outside and say it's raining,
Speaker 1: you know, this is more like what are the directions
Speaker 1: of of airflow at higher elevation the temperature exactly. Uh.
Speaker 1: In n a Russian meteorologist attached a radio meteograph to
Speaker 1: a sounding balloon. Oh there's some thunder out there, And
Speaker 1: that was the development of what we consider the modern
Speaker 1: weather balloons. So the previous weather balloons were kind of
Speaker 1: early attempts at using balloons together more information. But this
Speaker 1: is when we're actually starting to get information in real time.
Speaker 1: Radioed back very early on still and by six. That's
Speaker 1: when the Weather Bureau began operation of weather balloons, collecting
Speaker 1: information such as atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity, wind direction, and speed.
Speaker 1: So by six we're starting to get a fairly robust
Speaker 1: weather reporting system. Uh. In ninety the Weather Bureau jumps
Speaker 1: ship again and becomes part of the Department of Commerce.
Speaker 1: So once again playing hop scotch. Which is which is
Speaker 1: where it still is today? I believe. Yeah, although it's
Speaker 1: not the Weather Bureau anymore. We'll we'll talk about that
Speaker 1: in the second also circuit circer World War two. Um,
Speaker 1: we started to see people flying into hurricanes directly to
Speaker 1: study them. Yes, we call these crazy people, uh, brave
Speaker 1: people who really were really were trying to advance science.
Speaker 1: They weren't not doing this, you know, Willy nilly. This
Speaker 1: was wow. When that storm's coming right up on us. Excellent,
Speaker 1: it's hitting rant forest. Uh it's a tornado. Um, No,
Speaker 1: it's not, it's just a thunder storm. The is also
Speaker 1: when Roger Jensen started to become active, and he is
Speaker 1: one of the people that we referred to as an
Speaker 1: early storm chaser, right. I believe he chased his first
Speaker 1: storm in nineteen fifty three with his father. That's the
Speaker 1: date that I have. Oh, yeah, I got, I just had.
Speaker 1: Nineteen forties was when he started. But it's that was
Speaker 1: that was a very general kind of answer from the
Speaker 1: site I was looking at a time maybe in fact
Speaker 1: more accurate and uh. Roger Jensen was was a Turkey
Speaker 1: processing plant worker and farmer who got deeply involved in
Speaker 1: the storm in the growing storm chasing movement. He was, yeah,
Speaker 1: really one of the founders there, right, another one being
Speaker 1: David Hoadley, And you have some information about him, right, Um,
Speaker 1: I think he began in nineteen sixty five and following
Speaker 1: his his first experience there, he chased storms just all
Speaker 1: the time. He was from False Church, Virginia. Yes, and yeah,
Speaker 1: he was very much active in that along with another
Speaker 1: um scientists of one of the first storm chasing scientists,
Speaker 1: Neil Ward. Uh. Again in a very early storm chaser. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: while all this storm chasing is starting and it's just
Speaker 1: the earliest days of storm chasing, back in ninety eight,
Speaker 1: there was an Air Force captain who later became a
Speaker 1: colonel named Robert Miller and also Major Ernest faw Bush,
Speaker 1: who were the first on record in the United States
Speaker 1: to successfully forecast a tornado they actually forecasted in central Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: They were observing conditions that were very similar to a
Speaker 1: tornado that had hit the base four days earlier, and
Speaker 1: they said, these conditions are ripe for another tornado based
Speaker 1: on all that information, and so they actually began to
Speaker 1: discuss with the higher ranked members of the base there
Speaker 1: about whether or not they should take action. Ultimately, they
Speaker 1: decided that they should prepare for the potential of another tornado.
Speaker 1: So they acted as if another tornado was going to hit.
Speaker 1: The next day, another tornado did hit the base. That
Speaker 1: was two tornadoes that hit the very same base within
Speaker 1: the span of five days, which was, you know, pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: I mean, you're talking about again, a massive area and
Speaker 1: for two tornadoes to hit the same place within the
Speaker 1: span of a week is pretty rare. But yeah, that
Speaker 1: was the first successful forecasting of a tornado on record
Speaker 1: in the United States. UM and ninety the Weather Bureau
Speaker 1: provoked a ban on mentioning tornadoes and forecasts. So you
Speaker 1: might wonder why was there a ban in place. Why
Speaker 1: could not weather forecasters say, hey, conditions are right for tornado.
Speaker 1: Here are the reasons One tornado at that time, in particular,
Speaker 1: were largely mysterious forces that were just kind of considered
Speaker 1: acts of God, that these were events that would come
Speaker 1: down strike with incredible fury, things that would say insight,
Speaker 1: large spread panic exactly. The thought was that you would
Speaker 1: do more harm than good by saying, hey, there may
Speaker 1: be a tornado on the way, because no one knew
Speaker 1: exactly what they were supposed to do. By nineteen fifty,
Speaker 1: they the Weather Bureau had decided that this was no
Speaker 1: longer a responsible course of action, and that in fact,
Speaker 1: it would revoke that ban. By the way, the band
Speaker 1: was not always a formal band. Sometimes it was just
Speaker 1: highly discouraged from mentioning that conditions were right for a tornado.
Speaker 1: But at this point they said that that was no
Speaker 1: longer going to be an official policy. Uh in uh
Speaker 1: N five, You had mentioned that earlier about the storm chasers.
Speaker 1: That's also the same year when the Weather Bureau changed.
Speaker 1: It's uh. Well, there was a reorganization of the Department
Speaker 1: of Commerce, and so that reorganization ended up creating something
Speaker 1: called the Environmental Science and Services Administration, or SA, and
Speaker 1: that organization changed the Weather Bureau to the National Weather Service,
Speaker 1: which will send a lot more familiar I think to
Speaker 1: many of our listeners. UM. And in nineteen seventy the
Speaker 1: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration formed and replaced SA, so
Speaker 1: that's also known as NOAH. In O A A. We
Speaker 1: got to see the headquarters of Noah, and 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 many it currently has like
Speaker 1: two thousand trained volunteers working across the country and 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, which,
Speaker 1: as we know, right there in the middle of Tornado Alley. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm going to skip a whole bunch of years here
Speaker 1: only to mention one of the most famous programs in
Speaker 1: storm chasing, which is Vortex. VORTEX is an acronym. Of course,
Speaker 1: it stands for Verification of the Origin of Rotation in
Speaker 1: Tornadoes Experiment. So the e X and VORTEX is from
Speaker 1: experiment that was led by Eric Resmussen of Noah's National
Speaker 1: Severe Storms Laboratory or in S. S. L UM And hey,
Speaker 1: I said laboratory instead of laboratory. You did it. I
Speaker 1: didn't even have to think about that time. Vortex, by
Speaker 1: the way, was not the only program called that. There
Speaker 1: was a second one, Vortex two, which launched in two
Speaker 1: thousand nine. But there was an unusually quiet tornadoes season
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, which meant only one tornado was
Speaker 1: sampled that year. It was sampled in Lagrange, Wyoming, but
Speaker 1: it was the most intensively observed tornado at that time
Speaker 1: because there was so much equipment present at that moment.
Speaker 1: In two thousand, vortex To actually sampled quite a few
Speaker 1: super cells and a few week tornadoes as well, and
Speaker 1: gathered a lot of information. Now, during this span of time,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of other UH storm chasers that
Speaker 1: were active right UM. During during the nine seventies, UH
Speaker 1: David Hoadley founded storm Track magazine. It was becoming that
Speaker 1: hobbyist movement that we were talking about a little bit
Speaker 1: before UM and and you know, he was publishing articles
Speaker 1: in National Geographic and Scientific American UM. There were programs
Speaker 1: on the History Channel in ABC. UM. It was becoming
Speaker 1: very much in the public eye, especially with the creation
Speaker 1: of these government agencies or the recreation of these government agents. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some of these agencies by the way, you know, we
Speaker 1: talked about it, you know, the eighteen sixties there were
Speaker 1: there was more than a hundred years of information gathered. UH.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting that it was kind of a you know,
Speaker 1: that chain was never broken. It it did transform quite
Speaker 1: a few times, but they remained like the information itself
Speaker 1: remained intact. And it really wasn't until we started getting
Speaker 1: um uh you know, small commercial or small non commercial
Speaker 1: vehicles UM cars that people could go out and drive
Speaker 1: around in too to respond very quickly to the movement
Speaker 1: of a storm. And um. And furthermore, the uh, you know,
Speaker 1: communication technology advancing to the point where through through radio
Speaker 1: and the beginning to satellite and cell phones and etcetera,
Speaker 1: that we can start to be responsive right right. In fact,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk some more about that technology, the stuff
Speaker 1: that storm chasers use in order to track storms and
Speaker 1: to measure their impact. Will also talk about how we
Speaker 1: classify tornadoes, which is an interesting story all on its own.
Speaker 1: But before we get into all of that, let's take
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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. Yeah, well, most people
Speaker 1: would say that that to really think of the scale
Speaker 1: and practical terms, you would go from F zero to
Speaker 1: F six, the idea being that anything over F six
Speaker 1: would have probably not. We never would see wind speeds
Speaker 1: at that intensity. 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 happened very quickly and end very quickly.
Speaker 1: And third of all, they're so powerful that our sentimentation
Speaker 1: gets pretty banged up. Yeah, it gets it gets JANKI. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't really end up with like a working sensor
Speaker 1: after tornado has finished playing with it. UM. 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, like, 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, but we can
Speaker 1: say that what's going on within it, it's very different,
Speaker 1: much more mysterious. So Professor Fagitta and Alan Pearson came
Speaker 1: up with a scale where they would look at the
Speaker 1: damage that was left after a tornado had passed through
Speaker 1: and said what speed of wind would be required in
Speaker 1: order to do this amount of damage. In other words,
Speaker 1: we were establishing how strong a tornado was after it
Speaker 1: had already happened by just looking at the devastation that
Speaker 1: had left. Now, the early scale was not terribly specific,
Speaker 1: and uh was not really or maybe I should say
Speaker 1: not terribly precise. There was an attempt to increase the
Speaker 1: precision and create the enhanced Fujita Pierson scale. Yeah, February first,
Speaker 1: two thousand seven was when it was updated. We call
Speaker 1: e F not just F. So if you ever hear
Speaker 1: like an F five tornado, that's really using an outdated format.
Speaker 1: It's really e F five what we would say now
Speaker 1: And what does that translate to in terms that we
Speaker 1: mere mortals can understand? Well, First of all, the way
Speaker 1: they determine the scale is they look at the type
Speaker 1: of damage that's on and to the type of structures
Speaker 1: or landscape that it hits. So to really determine that,
Speaker 1: they look at you know, if you say that a
Speaker 1: building was completely demolished, what was the type of building
Speaker 1: right now? How is how is it built? How sturdy
Speaker 1: was it in the first place, what materials went into
Speaker 1: making it exactly? And then and then and there's this
Speaker 1: really complex fact sheet that they have ranked out of
Speaker 1: different types of buildings. They've got like twenty eight or
Speaker 1: twenty nine different designations for the type of building or landscape.
Speaker 1: And then they had a numerical scale for how much
Speaker 1: damage was done to from one to eight, right, so
Speaker 1: eight being the greatest. So if you had like a
Speaker 1: concrete steel reinforced building and the devastation was at eight,
Speaker 1: that was the most unimaginably powerful tornado that could have
Speaker 1: possibly hit us. Uh. And then here's the thing, there's
Speaker 1: no upper limit to this scale because there may be
Speaker 1: tornadoes that can destroy the strongest stuff we build, and
Speaker 1: since we're basing it on the station, you can't get
Speaker 1: more devastating than total loss. Right, So if you have
Speaker 1: total loss, you essentially say that was a really powerful tornado.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't get more specific than that, because
Speaker 1: it could be that it's more powerful than our scale
Speaker 1: would even indicate. But after you've lost everything, that's kind
Speaker 1: of a moot point, right right, which is basically what
Speaker 1: they're saying with a with a e F five would
Speaker 1: be wind speeds over two hundred miles an hour, which, yeah,
Speaker 1: you get into a point where strong frame houses could
Speaker 1: be lifted into the air and carried a considerable distance
Speaker 1: before it was dropped again to OZ for example. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so e F zero would be the lowest. That's between
Speaker 1: sixty five miles per hour winds. Then at e F
Speaker 1: one would miles per hour, UH two goes up to
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty five miles per hour, three goes
Speaker 1: up to a hundred and sixty five, four goes up
Speaker 1: to two hundred and then anything over that, Yeah, e
Speaker 1: F five now and in the old scale you had
Speaker 1: up to F six really was what was being described.
Speaker 1: And under that old scale, and F six tornado was
Speaker 1: called an inconceivable tornado? Was it for real? Yes, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I don't think that tornado means what you think it means,
Speaker 1: um But at that point they said that the wind
Speaker 1: speeds were unlikely to happen at that intensity that was
Speaker 1: described as three hundred and nineteen to three hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy nine miles per hour. I think the highest on
Speaker 1: record is three, I believe, which is why would be
Speaker 1: the F six And that the idea here was that
Speaker 1: you might not even be able to tell that it
Speaker 1: was in F six tornado because anything from F five
Speaker 1: would leave essentially total devastation in its wake, right, so
Speaker 1: more total the station. They said that essentially you would
Speaker 1: have to verify it by looking at the evidence of
Speaker 1: the ground swirl pattern left behind. Yeah, it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 1: So the point being that it's about the best we
Speaker 1: can do simply because again, it's really hard to get
Speaker 1: a read on a tornado while it's happening. We really
Speaker 1: 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 aren't 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 podcast. Um.
Speaker 1: Then there's the anemometer, right, There's there's blade and anamometers
Speaker 1: and thermometers, and I had to I had to steady
Speaker 1: myself to say anemometer did you didn't need to release afterwards. Um,
Speaker 1: And the analog blade ones are UM. If you've ever
Speaker 1: seen a like a spoken series of arms or cups
Speaker 1: perched atop building cylinder, that's that is why. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: designed to measure wind speed. So if you've ever seen
Speaker 1: one of those things, it looks like it's a little
Speaker 1: pin wheel type thing, sometimes horizontally aligned with little cups
Speaker 1: at the end of the arms. It's spinning around in
Speaker 1: a circle. Uh. This does not tell us anything about
Speaker 1: 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 them in
Speaker 1: wind speed. Of course, thermometers tell us things about temperature, uh,
Speaker 1: and we can learn about humidity through various means. So
Speaker 1: getting to the basic gears of storm chasers, a lot
Speaker 1: of the basic gears. The kind of stuff that you
Speaker 1: might have at your disposal already, things like laptop computers,
Speaker 1: WiFi uh, digital cameras, Yeah, video cameras that are both
Speaker 1: for video or for still photography, radio's, walkie talkies, ham
Speaker 1: CB anything that they can get their hands on, police scanners,
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. Stuff that allows them to keep
Speaker 1: track of the movement of weather systems. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: anything that will give them the most up to date,
Speaker 1: mediate communication 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 to purposes
Speaker 1: journalistic purposes obviously. Yeah. And so those are those are
Speaker 1: your basic, uh pieces of equipment. There's some interesting approaches
Speaker 1: to studying tornadoes, some of which are not necessarily used
Speaker 1: that frequently today. Did you run into the term tornado
Speaker 1: photo grammy tree? I did not. Photography tree is an
Speaker 1: older form and we don't tend to use it as
Speaker 1: much because it's not terribly precise. Let's the use of
Speaker 1: film or video to determine the speed of movement of
Speaker 1: some kind of tracer element. So you take a tracer
Speaker 1: element as a point of reference. This is not necessarily
Speaker 1: something that you've introduced to the tornado. It may be
Speaker 1: something that the tornado has already picked up, like I
Speaker 1: don't know, a tractor, and it's usually a large piece
Speaker 1: of debris of or some sort of persistent element in
Speaker 1: the cloud itself. And from this you can start to
Speaker 1: infer what the wind speed is UH with varying and
Speaker 1: sometimes unknown reliability. So you analyze how the wind speed
Speaker 1: is by measuring the movement of this this persistent element.
Speaker 1: You know, you're how frequently is it coming around over
Speaker 1: and over, and from that you can sit there and say, well,
Speaker 1: the wind speed appears to be this. It was used
Speaker 1: more in the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties, but
Speaker 1: we kind of replace this with something that's far more reliable,
Speaker 1: namely Doppler radar. UH. In fact, we have Doppler radar
Speaker 1: that's mobile. It's called Doppler on wheels or Dow Dow
Speaker 1: and Doppler on wheels. Those are the main tools used
Speaker 1: in the effort to determine the strength of tornado winds today.
Speaker 1: So that raises the question what is Doppler radar and
Speaker 1: how does that work? Well. The Doppler effect we we
Speaker 1: have talked about on the show before, but it is
Speaker 1: the effect of electromagnetic waves crunching up as something moves
Speaker 1: towards you, right right. It's same thing with sound, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not it's any kind of wave. If it's
Speaker 1: moving toward you, the frequency of the wave increases because
Speaker 1: the object is actually moving, uh, towards you. If it's
Speaker 1: moving away, the frequency decreases. Those waves along gate. So
Speaker 1: in sound and for once, it's amazing that we can't
Speaker 1: hear it because whenever we record tech stuff there seems
Speaker 1: to always be sirens going off in the background. But
Speaker 1: with sound, like if a police car has its siren
Speaker 1: running and it's coming towards you, you might hear a
Speaker 1: higher pitch and then after it passes you, it goes
Speaker 1: to a lower pitch. That's an example of the Doppler
Speaker 1: effect with sound waves. Same thing is true with electromagnetic waves,
Speaker 1: and radar uses electronmagnetic waves to kind of get an
Speaker 1: idea of where other objects are radio waves, right, um,
Speaker 1: it's it will shoot a very quick like millisecond burst
Speaker 1: of radio waves called a pulse, called a pulse out
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully towards an object or sometimes just to
Speaker 1: see what's out there and um. And then it will
Speaker 1: measure the length of time between when it's sent and
Speaker 1: when an echo comes back. And we'll also measure the
Speaker 1: the the Doppler effect, the phase, the phase of that
Speaker 1: of that wave, So between 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, and whether or not
Speaker 1: something's moving toward it or away from it, and in
Speaker 1: a vague concept of how fast by kind of mathematically computing, Yeah,
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 you can move
Speaker 1: the the the radar around so that you can get
Speaker 1: a better idea of the speed of the storm itself
Speaker 1: and even get an idea of the strength of the tornado. Right. However,
Speaker 1: these these vehicles have to stay between two and eight
Speaker 1: miles away from a tornado to be effective, right, And
Speaker 1: it's mostly effective if it's encountering stuff that is fairly
Speaker 1: large in the in the relative scheme of things. So
Speaker 1: in other words, if there's precipitation, that's great. That means
Speaker 1: that there's more stuff for the radar waves to bounce
Speaker 1: off of, and that could be. If it's larger raintrops,
Speaker 1: that's even better. If it's hailstones, that's fantastic because that
Speaker 1: gets a lot more for the doppler. For anyone who's
Speaker 1: caught underneath it. Hailstones are terrible. You do not want
Speaker 1: to be under them. But for for the purposes of radar,
Speaker 1: it works really, really well. And I think the strongest
Speaker 1: wind speed determined from a DOW is um at least
Speaker 1: from the data I was able to find. Keep in mind,
Speaker 1: some of this data is several years old because all
Speaker 1: of it comes from government sources and reports can take
Speaker 1: a while and to become publicly available. But the strongest
Speaker 1: I was able to find was three hundred and two
Speaker 1: miles per hour. So I saw I saw a report
Speaker 1: of one from Oklahoma that that that recorded the world
Speaker 1: record speed of three eight Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: my latest records are later than your latest rick. There's
Speaker 1: a specific type of radar that has been used for
Speaker 1: some storm tracking technology. It's called smart R, which is
Speaker 1: again yet another acronym stands for Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research
Speaker 1: and Teaching Radar. This is one that is mainly used
Speaker 1: for research. It's used both for hurricanes and for tornadoes
Speaker 1: and UM. So you know that this combination of technology
Speaker 1: is used to really get as much information about strength
Speaker 1: and speed as we possibly can so that we can
Speaker 1: add to our body of knowledge. UM. And then there's
Speaker 1: some private chase teams and tours that have marine radars
Speaker 1: mounted on their vehicles. However, you should know this is decoration.
Speaker 1: Marine radars are useless when it comes to storm chasing
Speaker 1: and storm tracking. It's promotional purposes only they're not used
Speaker 1: in research. Um and actually marine radar signals can interfere
Speaker 1: with research units like DOWS, so don't do it. Storm
Speaker 1: chasing companies, don't put marine radar on your trucks and
Speaker 1: then use them. Yeah, that's pretty silly. There are some
Speaker 1: projects that have been very interesting but not very successful.
Speaker 1: Uh Toto is one of my favorites. TOTO standing for
Speaker 1: Total bal Tornado Observatory. Now TOTO, of course, is also
Speaker 1: obviously a reference to that fantastic documentary about a tourist
Speaker 1: from Kansas who visits a an exotic land and UH
Speaker 1: kills the one of the leaders of that land. Them. Actually,
Speaker 1: Total was developed by Dr Allen Bettard and Carl Ramsey
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy nine, first deployed by them in Night One,
Speaker 1: and basically it was an oil drum of like a
Speaker 1: fifty five gallon oil drum with some stuff in it,
Speaker 1: with some instruments in it. The idea that the tornado
Speaker 1: would pick this drum up and we would gather the
Speaker 1: information from the instruments inside, and hopefully the drum would
Speaker 1: protect the instruments so that the information would usable. Right, So,
Speaker 1: how did that work out? Well? Um, it weighed four
Speaker 1: hundred pounds, which is as or so and so not
Speaker 1: actually very well. I mean, first of all, you know
Speaker 1: they were working in the early eighties when UH, we
Speaker 1: did not have the kind of communication technology that it
Speaker 1: would allow people to really effectively chase storms. So it
Speaker 1: was it was it was pretty much a crapshoot of
Speaker 1: whether or not they would leave this thing in a
Speaker 1: place that would were likely to get picked up right.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, they don't have the benefit of a
Speaker 1: laptop with WiFi in so they have radio. They could
Speaker 1: have radio, so they could they could get radio updates.
Speaker 1: But without the ability to actually track a storm on
Speaker 1: a computer and see it and be able to anticipate
Speaker 1: where it's going to move, it made it much more
Speaker 1: difficult to get to the right place at the right time.
Speaker 1: Sure Also, it took thirty seconds to deploy from the
Speaker 1: back of a of a specially created truck um which
Speaker 1: is which sounds like a short period of time, but
Speaker 1: but that is tremendously long when a tornado is bearing
Speaker 1: down on you. Yeah, or if you're anticipating a tornado,
Speaker 1: keep in mind we're talking about that wall cloud, which
Speaker 1: was the indicator that a tornado could touch down within
Speaker 1: ten to twenty minutes. If it takes you half an
Speaker 1: hour to unpack your equipment, just finding out where the
Speaker 1: tornado might touch down and then getting the equipment out
Speaker 1: and set on the ground, first of all, it may
Speaker 1: be too late, maybe that the tornado has touched down
Speaker 1: while you were trying to get your your equipment out,
Speaker 1: in which case you may be in serious danger or things.
Speaker 1: Conditions could have changed to the point where the place
Speaker 1: where you thought was the perfect spot is no longer
Speaker 1: anywhere close to where the tornado may touch down. So
Speaker 1: it was very difficult. It as a surprise to no one.
Speaker 1: It was never really picked up by a tornado. Uh. No,
Speaker 1: it did it. A tornado did run over it once
Speaker 1: in UM when the n SSL had had taken over
Speaker 1: for it, and um, mostly the tornado just knocked it
Speaker 1: over and damaged the instruments. Yeah so, but then it
Speaker 1: served as inspiration for another uh, fictional device, didn't Yes,
Speaker 1: it did. Toto was the inspiration for Dorothy, which was
Speaker 1: the fictional device in the film Twister. Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: movie that made us believe that a cow could be
Speaker 1: picked up by a tornado and still be perfectly cow like,
Speaker 1: were willing to move at any rate. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: not turned into hamburger. Um, Yeah it was. Uh. Dorothy
Speaker 1: was the name of the device they wanted to deploy
Speaker 1: in the film and try and get it in the
Speaker 1: path of the tornado. It was inspired by the real
Speaker 1: world analog Toto in in reality, Toto was scrapped in UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, however, there are many other instruments that have
Speaker 1: been created for similar purposes. UM One is called a turtle,
Speaker 1: which is a kind of hub cap looking little devices
Speaker 1: that are They were debuted, I believe in nineteen eighties six,
Speaker 1: and we're we're on that beginning edge of digital technology there.
Speaker 1: They were not meant to be picked up. They were
Speaker 1: actually designed as heavy, squat and aerodynamic, the idea being
Speaker 1: that they could withstand the wind forces of a tornado
Speaker 1: so that you could retrieve them and find out all
Speaker 1: the information you needed, things like temperature, pressure, humidity, and
Speaker 1: not just get picked up like the like Toto 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, that we would
Speaker 1: be able to learn new fund stuff about them. 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 armored vehicles? Yeah, oh okay,
Speaker 1: so 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 winds, 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, right um. Some of them
Speaker 1: even have stabilizing jacks that will that will extend down
Speaker 1: and into the ground and stable again, stabilize this so
Speaker 1: that when heavy wind hits it, it doesn't rock over
Speaker 1: and and tilt over and fall off right um. The
Speaker 1: tip too specifically was was was one that was created
Speaker 1: that weighed about eight tons. Yeah, that's a pretty hefty vehicle.
Speaker 1: It also usually has has windows designed so that someone
Speaker 1: with 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 is 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, uh seeing at least
Speaker 1: one clip where the crew was concerned that his desire
Speaker 1: to get the best footage was possibly a little reckless.
Speaker 1: That's probably the best way for me to put it,
Speaker 1: and I have no doubt that that that could be
Speaker 1: a thing that could have happened. Well, what kind of
Speaker 1: information have storm chasers gathered? Mainly we're talking about atmospheric conditions,
Speaker 1: things like the rotation of the clouds, getting more information
Speaker 1: about that, more information about the actual sequence of events
Speaker 1: that leads up to tornado formation, the behavior of the
Speaker 1: tornadoes themselves, the strength of the tornado. Uh, the you know,
Speaker 1: We've 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, yeah, we will because it's
Speaker 1: so dangerous. Yeah, we're talking about such huge forces here
Speaker 1: that getting a good reading is just, uh, it's risky
Speaker 1: and a lot of the stuff we've developed just can't
Speaker 1: live up, can't hold up to those kind of forces.
Speaker 1: It can, as we said, be very financially viable. Um
Speaker 1: one war in Fadely is a kind of rocks our
Speaker 1: storm chaser whose photos of storms can sell for over
Speaker 1: ten thous dollars a piece, Yeah, which has inspired a
Speaker 1: lot of people to try and follow in his footsteps.
Speaker 1: In fact, that's one of the big controversies, and we
Speaker 1: can go ahead and move into the controversy of storm chasing.
Speaker 1: One of them is that with documentaries with reality television,
Speaker 1: I mean we do have storm chasers on Discovery. We've
Speaker 1: got or we had I believe it was. It was
Speaker 1: ended in two Yeah. So, But but there's been some
Speaker 1: controversy that these sort of things have inspired lots and
Speaker 1: lots of people to either pursue it as a hobby
Speaker 1: or go into the tourism trade, that sort of stuff,
Speaker 1: and that that itself can add to the already significant
Speaker 1: danger of storm chasing for research purposes or even as
Speaker 1: a profession especially considering the fact that if you've got
Speaker 1: if you do have research professionals who are out there
Speaker 1: trying to be safe, and you get in their way
Speaker 1: bad times for everybody you can, you can cause traffic
Speaker 1: jams right when people need to have an open escape
Speaker 1: route in case the storm changes dramatically, and that can happen.
Speaker 1: Storm storms can travel in one direction and then suddenly
Speaker 1: veer off, and you need to be nimble enough to
Speaker 1: be able to respond to that. But if you've got
Speaker 1: a line of cars behind you and that's the only
Speaker 1: way out, then you're kind of stuck. It also means
Speaker 1: adding the danger of first responders needing to get to
Speaker 1: locations after a tornado has passed through. So it's one
Speaker 1: of those things that has raised some concerns because legally speaking,
Speaker 1: there are no rules or laws regarding storm chasing, apart
Speaker 1: from obeying traffic laws and things like trespassing. Clearly, you
Speaker 1: are not supposed to trespass on people's property. You aren't
Speaker 1: supposed to, uh, you know, drive the wrong way down
Speaker 1: the street, that kind of stuff. But beyond that, there's
Speaker 1: not really anything. You know, there's nothing illegal about storm chasing,
Speaker 1: but there have been some discussions about that. UM and
Speaker 1: then twenty team we had a tragedy in which three
Speaker 1: storm chasers, famous ones Tim Samaras, Paul samarrass Son and
Speaker 1: Carl Young Uh they died in h an accident. They
Speaker 1: were caught in a tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma. This
Speaker 1: was on May thirty one, and Endy they had been
Speaker 1: part of the Discovery show storm Chasers. Full full disclosure,
Speaker 1: Full disclosure. We are house Works as a part of
Speaker 1: daughter company Discovery. Now we should also say that that
Speaker 1: they were experienced storm chasers, and they were. They were
Speaker 1: widely regarded as responsible members of the community, and they
Speaker 1: had provided quite a bit of scientific research. Absolutely, Tim
Speaker 1: in fact founded twist Decks, which which is similar to Vortex.
Speaker 1: It's it's an acronym for the tactical weather instrumented sampling
Speaker 1: in Tornado's experiment. Yeah, he had an engineering background, uh,
Speaker 1: and he successfully deployed a turtle that recorded the barometric
Speaker 1: pressure of two different tornadoes. One in two thousand three
Speaker 1: recorded a barometric drop in pressure of forty milli bars
Speaker 1: and another one another probe recorded a one d milli
Speaker 1: bar drop in a violent tornado in South Dakota. UM.
Speaker 1: Later on, other turtles would record more baro metic pressure,
Speaker 1: but his was the first one to do that. So
Speaker 1: he was really contributing to the scientific knowledge of tornadoes.
Speaker 1: And so Uh. Their deaths were very tragic obviously, and
Speaker 1: also raised up a conversation about is storm chasing something responsible?
Speaker 1: Is it okay, should be for other things, for for
Speaker 1: for non humans to collect the data, and and you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of those things again where there's there's not
Speaker 1: been any official movement as far as I'm aware, but
Speaker 1: people like the Kansas Emergency Management Association president Brian Stone
Speaker 1: said it was worth looking into establishing at least some
Speaker 1: rules to guide storm chasers, if not formal laws, at
Speaker 1: least uh kind of a code really that storm chasers
Speaker 1: need to follow. Now, keep in mind Tim Samaras and
Speaker 1: his crew were experts. I mean they were they were
Speaker 1: known for being very safety conscious. So this really shows
Speaker 1: how unpredictable these storms can be. And even if you
Speaker 1: are at the top of your game and you are
Speaker 1: very careful, tragedy can strike. Yeah. Supposedly the storm that
Speaker 1: that they were killed and killed another ten people out
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma and supposedly had one of those very quick
Speaker 1: turns that no one could have predicted. They probably blocked
Speaker 1: their escape routes. And the National Weather Service does not
Speaker 1: endorse storm chasing because of the risk involved. However, they
Speaker 1: do welcome the reports that storm chasers bring in. So
Speaker 1: it's kind of you know, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where they say, yeah, we can't we can't say go
Speaker 1: out and be a storm chaser, but we will say
Speaker 1: that the do we get is invaluable. Yes, we can't
Speaker 1: put a price tag on that because it's it's helping
Speaker 1: us understand the systems and that's really the best way
Speaker 1: we know of doing it. And through sky Warn, in fact,
Speaker 1: they will conduct spot or training classes across the United States.
Speaker 1: If you're if you are very interested in storm chasing,
Speaker 1: I would recommend not probably going on one of the
Speaker 1: tours I don't think they're necessarily responsible, but um, you can't.
Speaker 1: You know, some may be very good at following safety
Speaker 1: rules and some maybe a little more lax in that.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say. It's hard to say, but but
Speaker 1: Sky Warren will Um will train you up. You can
Speaker 1: do it. You can do this in the most responsible
Speaker 1: and safe way possible, which is that's the best thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is your passion, and this is you
Speaker 1: want to contribute to the scientific knowledge. I mean, I
Speaker 1: find that admirable. I personally also think it's crazy because
Speaker 1: I I've know well well, like I said, Lauren, and
Speaker 1: I can talk a little bit about our experience living
Speaker 1: through tornadoes. Uh, and I would never ever ever want
Speaker 1: to invite that experience on me again if I can
Speaker 1: avoid it. What what? What? What did happen? Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: well I can talk about that. So. I grew up
Speaker 1: in northeast Georgia, near a city called Gainesville, which actually
Speaker 1: has a history of tornado problems. There was a tornado
Speaker 1: that moved through early in the twentieth century and laid
Speaker 1: the city to waste. I mean, it completely destroyed Gainesville.
Speaker 1: My grandfather worked in a textile mill in New Holland, Georgia,
Speaker 1: which is just outside of Gainesville. And uh, he tells
Speaker 1: or he told the story. He's passed on now, but
Speaker 1: he told a story about how working in the mill
Speaker 1: he was, you know, the tornado was bearing down the
Speaker 1: mill and he was moving toward the staircase to get
Speaker 1: down to a safe level, and as he was hitting
Speaker 1: the staircase, the roof of the building ripped off because
Speaker 1: of this tornado, the force of this wind. And uh,
Speaker 1: this was the same tornado that essentially level the city.
Speaker 1: When I was growing up, we had several tornadoes passed
Speaker 1: over the area of town I lived in, which is
Speaker 1: called Oakwood, Georgia. I grew up there, and uh, I
Speaker 1: can remember like there were there were houses that were
Speaker 1: within just a very short walk, like you just walked
Speaker 1: up a hill and you could see them that were
Speaker 1: completely leveled by tornadoes on a couple of occasions. And
Speaker 1: I mean I remember huddling with my family at the
Speaker 1: base of our house. Um, you know, not even sure
Speaker 1: if our house was going to be hit by these things.
Speaker 1: And uh, we had tornadoes passed directly over us where
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes a tornado will touch down and then
Speaker 1: lift up and touch down again. In fact, there's even
Speaker 1: argument about whether or not that counts as two separate
Speaker 1: tornadoes or the same one. We've had that happened where
Speaker 1: a tornado went directly over our house, where it lifted
Speaker 1: up and then set back down a little bit further out.
Speaker 1: So um, you know, as a kid, that was definitely
Speaker 1: like that was a life defining experience to the point
Speaker 1: where I had trouble with storms for a while after
Speaker 1: I was after that. These days, storms don't bother me
Speaker 1: so much. I can. I can handle that just fine.
Speaker 1: But if it starts turning like ominous, if I start
Speaker 1: noticing those little warning signs, I take cover because it
Speaker 1: is serious business. I mean, it is absolutely terrifying to
Speaker 1: live through. Sure, yeah, I am. My My experience is
Speaker 1: a lot more spotty than that. I remember being maybe
Speaker 1: maybe about five years old, and my my mother and
Speaker 1: U are extremely dedicated black Labrador retriever UM hurting me
Speaker 1: down into the basement. And uh, but I think that
Speaker 1: mostly by the time we got there, like by the
Speaker 1: time we heard about it and got down there, the
Speaker 1: radio was already calling it off. Um. And and this
Speaker 1: is the to the two types of warnings that you
Speaker 1: may have heard of and had a tiny bit of
Speaker 1: confusion about because I don't feel like they're very well
Speaker 1: publicized the differences, but between them all the time. Tornado
Speaker 1: watch is issued by the n o A a UH
Speaker 1: Storm Prediction Center meteorologists and and they are watching the
Speaker 1: 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 then
Speaker 1: you need to get to safety. The the the watch
Speaker 1: is more that there are conditions that are favorable for
Speaker 1: a tornado. A tornado could could form under such conditions. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've seen so many of both. Um. It's one of
Speaker 1: the one of the risks of living in the Southeast
Speaker 1: United States. Not again, not nearly as prone to tornadoes
Speaker 1: as other parts in the nation, which can get them
Speaker 1: even more regularly than we do. And I thought i'd
Speaker 1: close out this is something that another storm chaser had
Speaker 1: said about the situation with with Tim Samaras and his
Speaker 1: son Paul and Carl Young. His name is Renny vander Wedge,
Speaker 1: and I apologize if I have butchered that name, but
Speaker 1: he had this to say, and I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1: There's actually quite a bit that he has written about
Speaker 1: the storm chasing in general, but I thought this, this
Speaker 1: really bears attention in our podcast. So he said, many
Speaker 1: storm chasers do a lot of good. Some are researchers
Speaker 1: trying to understand why some storms produce tornadoes and others
Speaker 1: do not. Tim Samaras, for example, combined his background and
Speaker 1: engineering and whether to invent devices for measuring conditions inside
Speaker 1: a tornado. His research has been valuable. Other researchers use
Speaker 1: mobile radar units to measure precipitation and wind inside a
Speaker 1: tornado from close range to gain a better understanding of
Speaker 1: how tornadoes develop. Other chasers are simply out there for
Speaker 1: the thrill of chasing, or to capture video to sell
Speaker 1: to media outlets. But as tornado video has become plentiful
Speaker 1: on YouTube and other websites, chasers have had to get
Speaker 1: closer than ever to get the kind of footage that
Speaker 1: will earn them a paycheck. They often find themselves in
Speaker 1: the bears cage, which is chaser lingo for the part
Speaker 1: of the storm where tornado forms. Some have built vehicles
Speaker 1: to drive directly into a twister. This carries enormous risk.
Speaker 1: Now he teaches meteorology and bring students with him on
Speaker 1: trips where they, uh, they observe these stormfronts and the
Speaker 1: weather conditions, so that the meteorologists have direct experience with
Speaker 1: 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. Um. But that that kind of wraps
Speaker 1: up this discussion. Uh, you know, it's kind of heavy
Speaker 1: in times, and and obviously you know, we've had our
Speaker 1: own personal experiences that kind of make give us our
Speaker 1: own perspective on that. But but it is a fascinating thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you're this is part of the
Speaker 1: adventurous spirit of human beings and the fact that there
Speaker 1: are people who are willing to put themselves at risk
Speaker 1: in order to gain more information and also get the
Speaker 1: knowledge out there about any storms that are developing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people can get to safety. It's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why I think humankind is such an amazing, amazing species.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're we're willing to do this sort of
Speaker 1: stuff for various motivations, but the fact that we are
Speaker 1: is just phenomenal. So guys, uh, I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode of tech Stuff. If you have any suggestions
Speaker 1: for future topics or you want to comment, maybe you've
Speaker 1: looked through a tornado and you want to tell us
Speaker 1: your story, please do share that story with us. You
Speaker 1: can email us. Our address is tech stuff at Discovery
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can drop us a line on
Speaker 1: our social media Facebook and Twitter. You can find us
Speaker 1: with the handle text stuff hs W and Lauren and
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon. Everyone for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Because it
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