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
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 storm chasers have luck on
their side they get their probes into
position just minutes before a massive
tornado hits this is probe 3 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 pox 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
the closer I come to that type of
natural phenomena the more you detect
them or you can discover them – the
bigger is the fascination