Inside the Tornado | National Geographic

with winds up to 300 miles an hour and
billion dollar paths of destruction
tornadoes are some of the least
understood phenomena in nature for years
meteorologists and scientists have been
trying to decipher how and when
tornadoes form
that’s why electronics engineer Tim
Samaras and his team of storm chasers
head straight for the action when
everyone else is running away
Samaras travels with all sorts of low
and high tech tracking devices whatever
it takes to get closer than anyone has
ever been in the back of Tim’s van are
six 45-pound probes packed with
instruments that measure barometric
pressure wind speed and direction
temperature and humidity any
measurements these probes get from the
center of the tornado would become the
basis of a better understanding of how
they form and how they maintain their
strength photo engineers at National
Geographic designed a probe and stuffed
it full of still and video cameras with
the hope it will survive the onslaught
of these violent storms
if they can somehow manage to set down
their probes directly into the tornado’s
path will the devices be able to record
anything or will they be smashed to
smithereens first things first
getting mother nature to cooperate in
the spring when warm humid air rushing
up from the south
collides with cooler dry air pushing
down from Canada severe storms or super
cells are formed when these masses
collide conditions are ripe for tornado
formation
but scientists still aren’t sure exactly
what in these conditions causes a
tornado to form and when you take a look
it’s obvious that although they
generally form under the same conditions
they come in all shapes and sizes more
than 1,000 tornadoes touched down every
year in the United States the majority
forming in a swath of the central plains
known as Tornado Alley the team first
sets out on May 3rd toward a promising
set of conditions in the Texas Panhandle
over the next six weeks they rack up
over 25,000 miles as they crisscross
eight states hunting for that elusive
perfect location but when all goes well
the action is fast and furious it’s
great for Tim he needs less than 10
seconds to flip a switch
make sure the probe is facing north and
run back to the car then back to waiting
hoping the tornado doesn’t swerve
for once the stormchasers have luck on
their side they get their probes into
position just minutes before a massive
tornado hits this is probe three you can
actually tell this side of the probe was
actually the one that was facing the
tornado and as you can see there’s lots
of debris pops where who knows what
actually impacted the probe with the new
data from the probe Tim made a
surprising discovery the barometric
pressure inside a tornado drops farther
than anyone realized helping explain how
tornadoes maintain their strength the
probe recorded images from the edge of a
twister but none from inside the tornado
that the closer I come to that type of
natural phenomena the more you you
detect the more you can discover them
that the bigger is the fascination