Tornadoes with Tim Samaras 0:00 Music 0:04 Music 0:08 Tim Samaras: Since I was a kid, I've always been interested in storms. As an 0:12 engineer I try to understand how things work. So, I actually 0:16 built and designed a device to measure the weather, basically, 0:20 on the inside of a tornado. 0:24 The United States on average gets about 0:28 1200 tornadoes per year. And the reason is, is because of its unique 0:32 geographic location. You got the Gulf of Mexico off 0:36 to the South, and theses storm systems as they pass through draw 0:40 this Golf moisture as water vapor and comes right up through the Midwest. And 0:44 spring time generally reflects a very, what we call a very active jet stream 0:48 and it brings us a very powerful winds that 0:52 just comes right across the Midwest. That combination allows 0:56 these big storm systems to develop and of course wind shear is a very powerful ingredient 1:00 for a tornado. The ingredients for a tornado 1:04 obviously are quite complex but some of the basics are, 1:08 you have to have moisture, you have to have lift and then the 1:12 other most important ingredient is what they call wind shear. And 1:16 shear creates these big horizontal rolls in the atmosphere. 1:20 And then when a thunderstorm forms underneath it, it actually tips these 1:25 horizontal rolls in a vertical position to where a thunderstorm forms 1:29 over them, you have the whole thunderstorm rotating. Those final 1:33 processes are what we're trying to study. 1:37 What's bringing the rotation finally all the way to the ground and that's 1:41 really one of the biggest mysteries of tornado formation. 1:45 You know its very difficult to forecast where a tornadoes going to be. When we're actually in 1:49 the field, waiting for thunderstorms to develop, we use what they call visible 1:53 satellite imagery. This is basically a picture from space, showing 1:57 the best areas, what we call instability, and that's how and where 2:01 we are able to target these storms that are developing. 2:05 Ground-based radar can't even see these storms develop, but satellite can. 2:09 Satellites also detect what we call boundaries. 2:13 These boundaries, left over from old thunderstorms, become the 2:17 focus of new thunderstorms during the day and actually enhance 2:21 the tornado potential. Visible satellite technology allows us to 2:25 identify this, which otherwise would be going totally 2:29 unnoticed and undetected. One of the biggest 2:33 things that I would love to see in future satellite technology is the 2:37 ability to actually see lightning within the cloud tops. All the 2:41 vertical motion and so forth greatly enhances the ability to create lightening. 2:45 This lightning mapping will actually show frequency. If the storm is 2:49 becoming severe, the lightning frequency increases and thus being 2:53 able to do an early detection of whether or not that storm is severe or not. 2:57 Music 3:01 If we knew more 3:06 about tornado genesis and structure and we're able to stretch that warning out to twenty or 3:10 twenty five minutes, right now the average time is about fifteen minutes or so, 3:14 that gives people more time to prepare and seek shelter. 3:18 Without the GOES satellite we would be back in the dark ages of the mid to early 3:22 sixties. These GOES satellites are responsible, in my opinion, for saving 3:26 many many thousands of lives. 3:30 3:34 3:38 3:42