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Twisters release has reignited the love that most midwesterners have for severe weather and the need to be the first to see a tornado on its way. 

Standing on our front lawns, eyes shielded with a hand to the wind and rain, we often find ourselves either disappointed or relieved that the skies didn’t produce the unpredictable and violent torrent of wind we call Tornados. 

Listen now, as Kayla and Sam discuss Tornados, break down how they’re rated, how they form, and how common myths have come to taken as facts. 

The outdoors are a beautiful that can be filled with light and bliss and many different ways to bring yourself closer to those you love and yourself. But they can also be filled with terror and death, imminent and oppressive. Join me as we dig into these stories that inspire you to be just a little bit more careful while you’re in the outdoors. Please rate and subscribe from whatever listening platform you use. 

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And don’t forget to send us a Campfire Confessional to tragedywithaview@gmail.com - accepting all stories from the outdoors but especially looking for those that make us laugh to help lighten the heaviness that comes with tragedy. 

And the long list of Sources: 
https://opensnow.com/news/post/tornadoes-in-the-mountains
https://rainbowrestores.com/blog/what-is-the-fujita-scale
https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/forecasting/
https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/detection/
https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/types/
https://www.nssl.noaa.gov/education/svrwx101/tornadoes/
https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/storms/how-tornadoes-form#:~:text=Winds%20moving%20in%20different%20speeds,spinning%20air

Duration:
1h 7m
Broadcast on:
28 Aug 2024
Audio Format:
mp3
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Mother Nature plays by her own secret set of rules and meteorologists have the agonizing task to try to make sense of all the disruption she can cause. One of the most unpredictable and violent parts of nature are the phenomenon that inspired the twister movies. The thrill that puts us on the edge of our seats and makes us begin to wonder, what if what is portrayed on screen could possibly be real? So today, we are going down the tornado wrangling rabbit hole. - Whoosh. - Tornado. - I was actually trying to find like a tagline for the twister's movies and the most popular one had to do with the first twister movie and it was like, that's a cow. - Oh, well, what was the twisters thing that the guy said? He was like, it was something about if you ain't chasing your ride in or something. I'd have to look it up. - Yeah. - He had a catchphrase, remember? - Yeah, but it wasn't like the catchphrase of the movie. I guess they had some other. - And you're saying that, oh, that's a catchphrase. - No, I'm just, no, I mean, I guess what I was saying was I tried Googling like catchphrases for the twisters movie. - Like, are you saying like a twisters, blah, blah, blah? - Like, yeah, or like what is like one phrase that this movie might be remembered for? - It's a shark. - Like Jaws? - Yeah. - I don't know if that was actually-- - We're gonna need a bigger boat. - Oh. - I've never seen Jaws, but my parents have. - Okay. - And my father. - Well, if any of you guys know what, it's before my time, unfortunately, which is not true, but it is true at the same time, because I have not seen the first Twister movie. - We're gonna change that. - Good luck. - I'm just kidding. - Fellow co-host Amanda Twister is one of her favorite movies, and so we're gonna arrange a time, because I also have not seen the original Twister. So maybe we'll watch it before, I mean, and I do the next episode that we do together. - Very quick housekeeping. I'm working on stickers. I've ordered a guest test batch to make sure that the colors are matching up for what I want them to be, because when Sam and I tried to print them ourselves, we just couldn't quite get the colors right, and that's important to me, so I'm gonna be working on that. I'm not gonna overload you with things kind of going on at the beginning of this episode, because I wanna get into it, but the next episode I'm going to be talking about book clubs, so if that's something that you're interested in finding out more information for, you can either go on to our Patreon. I do have a post-op that's public to members and non-members, so you can see the information there, but you will need to be a member of the hiking. Happy Hikers, why couldn't I get that out? Happy Hikers tier on Patreon to Access Book Club. But again, I'll talk about all the details for Book Club in the next episode, and then Sam. - Yes. - Do you have thoughts about tornadoes? - Well, I have been through one tornado, actually two tornadoes, one I was at Sam's Club, so I was at work, and then nothing really happened, and then... Yeah, not really any major events, besides the most recent Twisters movie. I think it is an interesting thing nowadays with insurance, and how natural disasters affect current real estate, and rebuilding, and the cost to rebuild things, that's a very crazy thing. - Yeah, that was an aspect that I wasn't really expecting in the movie, to have basically somebody coming in and buying all of the destroyed properties, and buying them for really cheap so that way they couldn't... - Yeah, I mean, I think that us, we in America, are more familiar with the larger damage things like hurricanes. I mean, you have these, I mean, Camille is probably familiar with that now, in that the people that were just normal people that owned property on the water, when their house gets destroyed, they're screwed, and I feel like that's when the big companies like that will come in and be like, "Do you really want to wait for your house to get rebuilt? I can just give you money right now." - Well, especially too, I know in California where wildfires are really prevalent and Florida where hurricanes are really prevalent, insurances are starting to drop, because... - Then you have the whole Hawaii thing, wildfire. - Yeah, I mean, it's just crazy, but I actually have two experiences with tornadoes. When I was young, I don't actually remember how old I was, but we were driving home from my grandmother's house who lived about an hour away from us, and it was thunderstorming, and my dad was driving. My mom was obviously in the front seat. I was sitting behind my dad, and my brother was sitting behind my mom in the backseat. So we're driving, it's storming, and I don't remember how our attention got brought to the funnel cloud that was next to us, like in the field. - It was your primal instinct, an attachment to nature. - Maybe, but I don't actually remember if my parents said something. The next thing that I actually remember is my mom and dad were fighting, because my dad was like, "Should we pull over? We need to get in a ditch." And my mom was like, "No, it's going the opposite direction. You keep driving." My brother was next to me crying and screaming that we were gonna die, and I think I had my face plastered to the window. - Yeah, Chad, do you hear that? I'm like a little baby. - Yes. - If you hear this, then I tell me about it. - I don't know that he'll hear this, but he might not be interested. But yeah, that was my first experience with, or most memorable experience with the tornado, was that we saw the funnel cloud come down and it touched down. The other experience that I have was in 2010, the day before I graduated high school, or the day before our graduation ceremony of high school, tornado hit the town next to us. Took out the entire school, took out a lot of the town. It was an F4 tornado. I didn't realize that until recently when I looked it up to see exactly where all it took out. And that one, I also don't remember a lot of the details of, other than we were in the basement and our power went out, and we were listening on a battery radio, too. - Was this, you said it was before your graduation, so it was during summer? - It was the night before our graduation ceremony. - So no one was in the school. - Nobody was in the school. - Nobody was in the school, but they also had their graduation ceremony the next day. So my high school that I graduated from opened up their stadium for them to use so that we had two graduations going on at one time. - Oh. - Yeah, so that was a crazy experience. And it was a, I mean, the communities from all around came together to help clean up and, you know-- - I think that's something that was mentioned or observable in the New Twisters movie. - Yeah. - Just like how the community gets involved in helping each other win something like that that is out of the side of their control happens. I'm sure that happens in hurricanes and earthquakes and stuff, too. But it is a good sign about humanity. - Yeah. That's one of the things that I really like about telling these stories is the fact that people do come together and the spirit to help is there. And I think that's a great reminder, especially when, you know, you turn on the news and all they talk about are the devastating things that happen and they don't really look too much at, you know, the volume of people that are willing to put into work. - The efforts to, like, assist. - Yeah. All right, so kind of getting into it, I would like to encourage everyone to listen to the end of this episode because we are going to cover some safety items when it comes to tornadoes. - Which I learned that Kayla informed me before we watched Twisters, so stay tuned. - Yeah, and I also hadn't been realized until I talked to you about it that even people who grew up in the Midwest. - Me? - Like, not everyone has, like, the tornado safety background. And I think I don't-- - And even if you do, it's good to re-solidify the fundamentals and get re-familiarized with things that you may already know. - You know, brush the dust off? - Yeah, things are always changing. The things that I learned in elementary school are not necessarily the best things to do today. But we're just going to go over some of those things. And I, again, encourage you to listen because tornadoes are something that can happen in all 50 states, all-- I'm going to call it six continents because Antarctica doesn't have tornadoes because it's so cold. But, I mean, tornadoes can happen anywhere at any time that there's a thunderstorm. So I think having this information talked away in the back of your head would probably be a good idea. And I've actually had this particular story on my list for a while, but I didn't really know what direction I wanted to take with it until-- - We went and saw Twisters. And then, like, last week, we were under a tornado watch. There was a tornado warning south of my own home. - Yeah. - It just kind of made me think, like, this is probably information that people need. And so this episode absolutely looks different from most of my others. Moving on, on July 21st of 1987, a tornado formed and touched down at 1.28 pm just north of Jackson Hole, Wyoming near Lava Creek between Granite Mountain and Mount Randolph. The tornado then made its way through the wilderness of the Bridger-Teton National Park, going near Enos Lake, followed a path over the continental divide and into Yellowstone National Park, where it ended its 24.4 or 39 kilometer journey into the Theo Fair region of Yellowstone. There was a group of nine hikers that were at Enos Lake, who were halted with golf ball-sized hail and heard a roaring sound like that of a freight train. Luckily, there were no injuries and no deaths caused by this tornado, but an estimated one million trees in a mature forest were uprooted or snapped, and a mature forest just means that the forest was between 80 and 200 years old. So these were big trees that were snapped like toothpicks. Some of the trees that were left standing were seen to be splattered by topsoil, and they were also debarked. So the bark of the tree was whipped right off of them. The tornado ended up being rated as an F4 and stands today as the strongest tornado in the state of Wyoming, as well as the strongest tornado west of the continental divide. In fact, it is the only tornado to be rated an F4 or an F5 that has been observed in the United States, west of the continental divide, and the strongest tornado recorded at higher elevations. So for us, non-educated layman's about tornadoes, the F indication is for what? The Fujita scale, we are going to talk extensively. All right, we'll get there. Yeah, we're going to talk quite a bit about not necessarily the Fujita scale, but it's been changed in 2007 to the enhanced Fujita scale. So now tornadoes are identified as EF and a number, which, again, we'll talk about. So the tornado caused roughly 2.5 million U.S. dollars in damage. Dr. Ted Fujita, who is also known as Mr. Tornado, is the creator of the Fujita scale, and he used the scale to determine the strength of a tornado and spent a dedicated amount of time studying the damage done by this tornado in the Bridger Teton and Yellowstone parks, and he did this in order to understand tornadoes better. He organized three separate damage surveys in order to classify the tornado as an F4. No one was actually able to see that there was a tornado or a funnel cloud in this particular circumstance, but thanks to Dr. Fujita's studies of the 28 aerial shots where there were 72 microburst, microburst are described as downburst near wind shear or sections of the clouds that are protruding lower than the seemingly base of the cloud. So it almost looks like a funnel cloud coming down, but it's not rotating. These cloud formations indicate strong down drafts from the cloud, and then there was also four spin-up swirl marks on the ground, which indicates a tornado had been on the ground. To me, it almost doesn't make sense that they needed that confirmation when there was a 24-mile line of trees down in the middle of a forest. It could be Bigfoot or Godzilla. They were fighting, okay. Or King Kong. I guess that's more relevant right now. King Kong versus Godzilla. King Kong. We're just getting all the movies in today. So Dr. Fujita determined that the path of the tornado averaged 1.5 miles or 2.4 kilometers wide and was moving at a speed of 25 meters per second. He estimated the maximum wind speeds were between 207 and 260 miles per hour. Dr. Fujita had intended to conduct more analysis on this damage, but unfortunately there was a forest fire in 1988, which resulted in the destruction from the tornado going up in flames. So the evidence got wiped. Correct. So the fires that burned in Yellowstone in 1988 was actually multiple fires, nine of which were started by people, 42 of which were caused by lightning. 36% of Yellowstone National Park was affected by the fires, and $120 million was spent to try to assist in putting out the fires, along with 10,000 people fighting the fires. The fire clearly did not only affect Yellowstone, as they also left the park bounds and burned into the Teton Range, which we can see with the evidence of the tornado, which traveled from Teton to Yellowstone, getting completely burned to ash. Also for reference, if you're not familiar with the area of Yellowstone in Teton's, is Yellowstone is kind of north. Teton's is south of Yellowstone, and their main entrances are 57 miles apart. So that doesn't mean that the park bounds, I guess at what I should say, is the park bounds are closer than that, significantly closer than that, like within 20 miles of each other closer than that. But the main entrances to those parks are 57 miles apart, which also goes to say how big Yellowstone is. That is a big park. It is a very big park. We'll be there eventually. Next year. Uh, did you forget already? Where we're going next year? Where are we going next year? Don't you want to go see bears? Y'all low stone! Oh, we got to go to Glacier. Glacier is going to be easier for us to get to. Or Tennessee. Oh shit. But I've got the Idaho thing. That's true. Our friend was a random aside, this is a Sam distraction. Our friend recently went to Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains, and they had an Airbnb and had literally two bears. One really big one, and one really like a small one, just like come up and like stare at them. At two separate times. Yeah, like one of them climbed up this, like they had like a tiered house, and just like climbed up this little baby one climbed up and was like, "Hey, what's up?" Yeah, they had to stare that one away. Then the big bear was just like, "I smell tacos." Yeah. And yeah, so that was funny. So then Kayla, after I heard that story, I was like, "Oh, I know where we're going next." I asked him for the exact coordinates for the house. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's not very far from here, so. Yeah. Or it would. Hey, we can trip. We could, we could absolutely add it to the list. Okay, so I also want to clarify a couple of things. One, as we already kind of mentioned, the EF scale and the F scale are the enhanced Fujita scale and the Fujita scale. It was changed from the Fujita scale in 2007 to the enhanced Fujita scale, which is why there are some ratings as F and a number, and then EF and a number. The tornadoes that were previously identified as somewhere on the scale of the Fujita scale were not transitioned into the enhanced Fujita scale. They just stayed. That is my question randomly about this, though. Is it possible to convert it or not? Yes and no. Okay. So the Fujita scale goes based solely on wind and how fast the wind speeds are. The enhanced Fujita scale takes in account wind and damage. So you kind of sort of can. Are they accounting for inflation? There's my random joke, okay? Continue. Okay. The second thing I want to clarify is that we talk quite a bit about tornadoes that have been recorded. There, especially in the past, have been tornadoes. There's also been tornadoes in current day where they were never seen, specifically because in the United States, there's a lot of rural area where there are just less people and therefore less eyes to be able to see. There's also a lot of spaces where the radar doesn't. If a tree falls in the forest, no one hears it. Did it make any sound? Yes. But the radars just don't have reliable coverage, and so it's not as easy for them to pick up rotation on their radar. So there are tornadoes that occur that we don't know about. But we are talking about solely recorded tornadoes. I also want to say that I have always been under the impression that tornadoes didn't develop in mountainous terrain because there was always the assumption that, I guess at one point, tornadoes didn't follow topography. And so that's why getting in the ditch was a good idea because the tornado would kind of hop over the ditch, right? That's something that I was taught as a child. And as we can see with mountainous tornadoes, that is not true, especially when such as the tornado we just talked about going up and over the continental divide, that's a mountain range that it would have had to follow the topography to get up and over, right? So I learned things here too. So the Teton Yellowstone was the strongest mountainous tornado on record, but it is far from the only one. With that though, most tornadoes that touch down at high elevations are rated in EF-0 or an EF-1. In 2004, there was a tornado photographed in Sequoia National Park that was over 12,000 feet in elevation or 3,650 meters of elevation. And that's the highest elevation that a tornado has ever been confirmed at. Other tornadoes that have been at high elevation that have been recorded to date include the years 1845, 1944, 1959, 1979, 1970... I'm sorry, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2012, 2019, and 2022. So that was a mouthful, but that's actually not that many. Or it's like it's over that period of time. You literally could list them in 20 seconds over 150 years. That's true, but I guess what I'm meaning to imply is that the Bridger Teton, or the Teton Yellowstone tornado is not an outlier. Yes. Anyone indicating that our thought process, that tornadoes don't follow topography, so therefore you're safe in a ditch, is wrong. Yeah, I mean, it's as you met... Well, now with the change scale, it's like not many people live... More people live in non-mountainous areas, like extreme mountain areas, right? Like most people live in cities and things like that. So it's like with the change in the scale, which is now based on damage, like there's more likely to be damage because damage is human damage, or is it human damage, or is it damage to things? We'll talk about it, but it's damage to things. Oh, like trees? Trees building structures. Okay, well, yeah, it's just like you're more likely to not... There could be a lot more. They're just not recorded because no one cares to record in that area, or just the coverage is not as much. Yeah, nobody knows about it. So tornadoes are less likely in mountainous trains simply because mountains tend to have weather patterns and conditions that do not support the formation of the wind rotation required to form a tornado. They create crazy wind patterns like that Washington... What was that? Where was that at again? That was Mount Washington in New Hampshire? Yeah, what was the... I remember the wind speed being like really weird for that one. Yeah, it was really high. I think somewhere in the 200s. I don't remember off the top of my head. Go check that episode out. But yeah, episode 30 also called a rescue and resurgence. So we talk about the wind speed in that, but the wind speed is not the only thing that creates a tornado. Crazy wind patterns happen, as you mentioned, and that is one example. Correct, right, but there's a very specific requirement of the wind pattern. We will talk about it. I'm good at making you say we'll talk about it. Yeah, I mean you just want to talk about it right. You're bringing it up right now and it's like I have it in like two paragraphs. So, okay. So on the flip side, when the conditions to form a tornado are met in the mountains, it has been found that the mountainous terrain can actually enhance the strength of the updraft that is rotating and produce a higher likelihood of tornadoes forming. This is because the positioning will contribute to a larger amount of instability in the atmosphere as well as the wind and the speed and the direction of the wind all kind of plays together in a closer area. So when you're at elevation, you're closer to the base of the cloud. So it has an easier time for that tornado to form when all of the conditions are correct. So in order for a tornado to form, there needs to be a difference in speed and direction, which is known as wind shear. And this is going from ground level to cloud level. For example, the air movement on the ground is going in the south direction, but then as it works its way up towards the cloud somewhere between cloud and ground, the wind will change in speed and shift to going southwest. Then once you get up to the cloud, the wind is going again at a different speed and is going in the complete west direction. So you have that rotation that's starting at the south and then swirling around to the southwest and then going west. And this is the very simplified version, but this is what causes the rotating connection from the cloud to the ground, which is required for a tornado to form. So the air rotation then must be moving up from the ground as there are already down drafts from the clouds and these drafts and rotations must match up so that the down draft rotation in the cloud is over the updraft from the ground. Otherwise, a tornado will not be able to form. Typically speaking, the rotation near the ground doesn't move fast enough for a tornado to form. This is also why some Doppler radars are able to see rotation in a storm in like a particular section of cloud triggering a tornado warning without having a tornado confirmed by sight. There is another factor to being able to confirm a tornado. Typically you need to have some sort of visual to confirm the tornado on the ground, but under specific circumstances when the cloud doesn't have a ton of condensation and water droplets in the clouds and the tornado hasn't picked up a lot of debris yet. A tornado will look, well, a tornado will be invisible. And this is because tornadoes are made from wind. Wind is invisible. Wind is invisible. If there's no condensation to be pulled down from the cloud or debris yet picked up from the ground, you're not able to see where it's at. So there is that factor. I believe it's usually right in the very beginning of a tornado. When it's there, you just can't see it. 80% of tornadoes develop in supercell thunderstorms because there tends to be those storms tend to have the larger rotating updrafts that develop with the supercells as well as there is just more moisture in the clouds. Tornadoes usually take between 15 and 30 minutes to form, but that's not always fake and on occasion form without any indication beforehand. Even though 80% of tornadoes develop in the supercell, only 20% of supercells produce a tornado. 20% of tornadoes develop in non-supercell thunderstorms and they're actually associated with a line of strong thunderstorms called quasi-linear connective systems. These systems generally occur either late at night or in the very early morning hours, and the tornadoes that are produced from these storms tend to be on the weaker side, the smaller side, and they don't last as long in duration. Did you ever figure out why they're weaker at night? Is that just because of... So that particular type of cloud doesn't have the same type of strength as supercells. Supercells require a lot of moisture, which comes with humidity and heat, and as always, generally speaking, overnight the temperature will drop all the way until you hit the point of dawn and the sun starts coming up and then the temperature starts to rise again. So when it's dark out and that temperature is dropping, the heat isn't there to create the same amount of moisture and that then creates, I guess, weaker tornadoes. I see. There are two ways to be able to determine tornado conditions, and this is through first and foremost actual people who can be someone who's an emergency personnel, or it can be someone who's a local who has a keen interest in severe water. Or a tornado wrangler. And they have been through some sort of formal training. So yeah. Never mind. Len Powell was like a meteorologist or something in twisters. Well, I was talking about twister. Oh, yeah, he was a meteor. Yeah, he was trained, spoiler alert. Oh, yeah, sorry for anyone who hasn't seen that movie. If you haven't seen that movie yet, go. Stop what you're doing. Go. Come back to us later. The second is through a radar that has specific algorithms to identify and distinguish features that are commonly associated with tornadoes. These forecast models and the forecasting of tornadoes in general are really important for meteorologists to be able to understand and monitor the areas that are high risk for tornadoes. Earlier that they can detect these conditions that are favorable for a tornado to develop. The sooner they can issue a severe thunderstorm or tornado watch and that just puts more people on alert. The more people who are on alert, the more likely you are to save lives. And I know a lot of people are like bahumbug about meteorologists and, you know, them saying, like, oh, we're going to have really severe storms. But again, Mother Nature plays by her own secret set of rules. They're doing the best they can. But also if the thunderstorm develops the way that they think it might and does develop strong tornadoes, you are better prepared having known that information as far ahead of time as you can get rather than them playing it down and saying like, eh, this might get bad, but it might not because you're not going to take that serious. So that's what Kayla is trying to tell you, at least give your meteorologist some consideration. They're just trying to save your life. Yeah. Although I do the same thing when it comes to snow in the wintertime around here, they're like, oh, we're going to get three to six inches tonight. And I'm like, no, we're not. Do you know where we live? NSSL or the National Severe Storm Laboratory leads a program that researches weather patterns to help better understand storms and to be able to provide more lead time to warnings for tornadoes, severe weather, and floods. NSSL hope that in the future, their program will be able to predict individual tornadoes, and they do this by using information gathered by prior tornadoes to recreate the storms in their computer models. And while this is the simplified version of how tornadoes form, I do want to express the jet stream does carry an emphasis on the support of tornadoes forming. This is because the jet stream creates a strong updraft and a higher rate of vertical motion in the atmosphere, which supports the development of a tornado along with the amount of moisture that the jet stream carries. It also carries heat with it, and both the moisture and the heat help to create powerful storms that can develop tornadoes. The jet stream collides with cooler mountainous air from the north generally in the area that we identify in America as tornado alley. Sorry, so the jet stream, are you referring to a jet stream or the jet stream? The jet stream from the Gulf. Okay great, that's what I, so it's like the titular, the titular jet stream. We have a, we have a joke, never mind. The what? The titular or the aforementioned. There's something about, I'll tell you later, it's the definition of then. It's a funny word, but it's essentially means like the one, the only. Got it. Sort of, but in one word. Got it. Like the titular queen. Got it. Or something. Okay. Yeah. People use it wrong. I'm talking about the jet stream. Okay great. Okay. Okay. Before I say the next thing, I don't want anyone to freak out and worry and think that tornadoes are like a super, super common thing. I mean, sometimes they are, but like, we're not going to. Kayla has knocked on wood. Yeah. I'm not going to say it. What I was going to say, but I guess what I'm trying to emphasize is that there's nothing currently saying that we are more likely to get more tornadoes than what we have in the past. For the most part, tornadoes are a rare, natural phenomenon in comparison to normal weather phenomenon. Correct. And to help everyone kind of stay fully grounded here, pun intended, the fact that tornadoes are not that common, the fact is tornadoes are not that common. And so specifically in the United States, only about one out of 1000 storms or about 1% of storms produce a tornado. The United States is the most common country. Sorry. You're going to have to backtrack 1 in 1000. 1 in 1000. 0.1%. 0.1%. Yeah, I probably forgot a period in there. Thank you. Also, in addition to that, the jet stream, while it does carry a ton of moisture and a ton of heat with it, tornadoes require a greater amount of moisture than what the average storm produces, which is part of the reason why so few storms produce a tornado. There are parts of not only the United States, but also the world that have weather conditions that are more likely to support the formation of tornadoes. And as I've already mentioned, you can see this in the United States in the area known as tornado alley. The heart of tornado alley includes the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, eastern Colorado, South Dakota, and basically anywhere from Texas up to the Mississippi Valley accounts for a third of tornadoes in the United States each year. This doesn't mean that other areas of the world are safe from tornadoes. As I've already mentioned, tornadoes can happen anywhere on any continent in the world except for Antarctica. Tornadoes are unpredictable and have a variety of intensities, durations, qualities, and paths that can be hard to predict. Until a tornado touches the ground, it is considered a funnel cloud, and I pulled this directly from an article that I read, and I think it's interesting that you mentioned hurricanes earlier. Compared to hurricanes, tornadoes cover less surface area, travel fewer miles, and are shorter lived. Yet they are colossally more unpredictable. And I like the word colossally, which is why I had to quote it. Nice. Typically, tornado season lasts in the spring to summer months in that transition. However, tornadoes can develop at any time in any place in the United States, overland or over water in cities and rural areas, clearly in mountains as we've already discussed, and of course in the plains, which we see in tornado alley. Tornado alley doesn't have more tornadoes because it's the plains and it's a flat area. It has more tornadoes because of the jet stream colliding with the cooler mountain air. I think that is an interesting fact that most people would get wrong. Yeah. But you can also understand how in years past, when you don't have the understanding of what the weather patterns effect is, that they would see that flat area and be like, we have so many tornadoes here, it's because there's nothing blocking the wind. The wind can build up in gained speed. Yeah. I mean, it makes sense how it happened. In the United States, the average number of tornadoes per year between 1991 and 2010... Wait, wait, wait. I want to guess. Go ahead. So, what? Am I guessing per year? It's the average per year. Okay. No pressure. 1100. You are very close. Yes. 1251. I did not see the notes, that was a genuine guess. Yeah. I was actually last night, I was thinking, maybe I should share this document with Sam. Let him know what he's getting himself into, but then I was like, nah, I got to edit it some more. I predict the future. Anyways, in recent years, that average has seemed to hold steady with 1,086 touching down in 2020, 1376 touching down in 2021, 1,143 touching down in 2022, and then last year in 2023, there was 1,402. The United States does have the most tornadoes each year compared with anywhere else in the world. For example, the United Kingdom, would you like to guess the average of the United Kingdom's tornadoes each year? 63. Wow. 30 to 50. Man, I am so good at this. All right, the Fujita scale, which as has been mentioned previously was changed in 2007, basically just to have a better scale at determining the severity of a tornado than just going on wind speed. The Fujita scale calculated the severity by wind speed alone. The enhanced Fujita scale or the ES scale looks at the damage that is caused and then estimates the wind speed, which tells us where it falls on the scale. The EF scale is now the standard, so the F scale is no longer used. The EF scale takes into account the destruction caused by the tornado. These include 28 damage indicators that include building type structure and trees. Inside each of those 28 damage indicators, there are eight degrees that range from the most minuscule of visible damage to the complete obliteration of a structure or foliage. Does it still only go to five? Yes, loosely. We'll talk about it. I need to have, I need to have like a cow, we'll talk about it five, click, talk about it six. Okay, so the 28 indicators include barns, residential homes, residential buildings, small and large standalone buildings, strip malls, elementary schools, junior and high schools, automotive showrooms, hospitals, high-rise buildings, transmission line towers, flagpoles, softwood and hardwood trees and hotels. Softwood, yeah, it's just initially, well initially it just is like a weird categorization, but it's not weird, but initially it's like, wow, this seems petty. Well, originally what triggered me was flagpoles. Ah. I was like, who cares about flagpoles? People who have flags. I own a flagpole. Okay, so of course this isn't a comprehensive list and these categories often include other similar building styles, but this gives you a good idea of like everything that they look at to determine the strength of a tornado. The rating starts with an EF-0 and this requires that the wind speed be at minimum 65 miles per hour or 104 kilometers per hour. Additionally, anything over 200 miles per hour or 321 kilometers per hour is an EF-5, which is the strongest tornado on the scale as of today. EF-0 produces winds from 65 to 85 miles per hour or 104 to 136 kilometers per hour. And damage can include loosened roof shingles, damage siding, and small and shallow rooted trees are blown over. And EF-1 produces winds from 86 to 110 miles per hour or 138 to 177 kilometers per hour. This tornado will cause significant damage to buildings and trees, including roofing ripped from the building, mobile homes pushed from their foundations and large branches are snapped from trees. EF-2 tornadoes are considered the start of these strong tornadoes with wind speeds ranging from 111 to 135 miles per hour or 178 to 217 kilometers per hour. In this tornado, entire roofs and other building structures are removed from the buildings. Large trees are uprooted and cars are overturned, 95% of tornadoes fall into this EF-2 category or lower. EF-3 tornadoes cause widespread damage with winds from 136 to 165 miles per hour or 218 to 265 kilometers per hour. With strong homes being destroyed, large trees being snapped in half, cars tossed into the air and buildings that have weak foundations will be pulled from that foundation. EF-4 tornadoes account for 2% of all tornadoes and cause catastrophic damage. With winds from 166 to 200 miles per hour or 267 to 321 miles per hour, this will level while constructed buildings, cars will be tossed long distances and the grassy layer of earth will be scored or somewhat uprooted. And then we have the EF-5 which is an incredibly catastrophic event with wind speeds over 200 miles per hour or 321 kilometers per hour. Those are thrown for miles, towns and neighborhoods are completely leveled and entire landscapes are flattened, less than 1% of tornadoes fall into this category. Now an EF-6 rating does exist. Wow, if I just wait to have my questions answered, they end up happening. Trust the process. Trust my ability to ask these same questions. So however, wind speeds would have to reach over 318 miles per hour, which is 511 kilometers per hour. And so far, the last is close to kill is bedtime. So far, the fastest wind speed on record from a reliable source is in 1996 from Tropical Slight Clone, Olivia that occurred in Australia and the wind speed reached 253 miles per hour or 407 kilometers per hour. Dude, that seems like a major jump. Is this like a exponential scale or something? Is it like this or like it doesn't seem linear? Do you know what I'm trying to say? I do. I'm looking right now. Yeah, so it looks like there's 20 miles per hour between the wind speeds for EF-0, about 20 for EF-1, about 20 for EF-2, 30 for EF-3, 40 for EF-4, and then EF-5 is 117. So I'm not sure what exactly the purpose of that is, but it might just be that we've never had a tornado so strong, like we don't know how to categorize something that strong. Or maybe it's not necessarily that we don't know how to categorize something that's strong, but there's so few of them that it's hard to like split them into a category. Well, it just seems like an arbitrary number. It's like almost like, you know what it might be. It's something like, okay, we're going to see how much it's like a calculation. It's like, okay, how much wind would be required to uproot a tree that's diameter is like 4-foot. It's like 3-foot, 2-foot, 1-foot, and they just have this weird scale where it's like that wouldn't be linear because tree roots, it's like a circle and it would have more roots and it would go deeper and it wouldn't just be like, oh right, 20 more miles, it would be way higher because it's way stronger, live longer. It's like almost, if anyone knows. Sam has questions. I always have questions. I know. That's my favorite thing about you. Okay, so the tropical cyclonelyvia wind speeds were measured by an anemometer, anemometers are considered completely accurate. You can also measure wind speed from a wind sock, which is something that you often see at airports and the speed of the wind is measured. So it's such a funny name for that. It's an interesting name. So the speed of the wind is measured by, do you need help? I've had many inappropriate jokes related to some things that I've been said and that I've kept to myself. And he's now laughing at one. Okay, would you like to tell the inappropriate joke? Maybe it'll help you. It's practicing safe intercourse, it's a wind sock. Winter pours, winter pours. Okay. Now she's going to have to put the explicit marking on it. I might have to. We'll see how clearly that one comes out. Okay, the speed of the wind is measured by how rigid the wind force forces the sock to be. I lasted. I lasted. It's just my bedtime. I'm going to say that sentence again. The speed of the wind is measured by how rigid the wind forces the sock to be. And then the least accurate is by Doppler radar and finding the actual accuracy rating for the radar was actually really hard. But a couple of examples that, or I guess a couple of examples where there's potential for very, very strong tornadoes to have existed, but okay. So one tornado occurred before the enhanced Fujita scale. So it was scaled as an F5, but also because the wind measurements were taken from a radar, the accuracy is questionable and it's questionable enough that neither one of these tornadoes that I'm going to talk about real quick are considered an EF6. The first tornado being in 1999 occurred in Greenfield, Iowa. The wind speeds were measured by mobile radar and they were 321 miles per hour or 516 kilometers per hour. The second occurred in 2013 and is known as the El Reno tornado, again radar speeds depending on the source you look at have the top speeds ranging from 296 miles per hour to 340 miles per hour or 476 to 547 kilometers per hour. Actually, that's actually interesting that reminds me. I think the speed of sound. What's the speed of sound? Is that meters per second? It might be meters per second. I think it's 323, but it might be meters per second, not, uh, 343 meters per second. Yeah. Okay. So that's not miles per hour. Okay. I think miles per hour. It's like 1500. Okay. It's really fast. That would be faster than that. I was going to say it's like tornado winds as fast as the speed of sound. That would be crazy. Those, but not quite tornadoes themselves are harmful mostly because of the debris they toss around with 70% of damage coming from that debris. So now we are going to cover some myths that you may or may not have heard about tornadoes and or signs of tornadoes. So have you ever heard that a green sky? Yes. There's a tornado. Okay. This occurs when the cloud is holding a lot of water and the light is reflecting off of those water droplets between you and the storm cell. The tint becomes green rather than gray or blue. The myth formed because people thought that the sky turned green from grass and leaves being sucked up by a tornado and tossing them into the atmosphere. So it is true. But green, okay. The truth behind it is that because the water droplets are reflecting the green from earth, it means that there's a lot of moisture in the clouds. Which doesn't necessarily mean a tornado. Which doesn't mean that there's a tornado, but it also might indicate that there's a higher likelihood of a tornado forming. Okay. Myth number two. Tornadoes don't come into mountains or cities because all of the stuff that's there disrupts the air flow. And again, as we've already discussed in the beginning of this episode, we can see that that is not true. Along with that, if you're going to use a logic that the stuff disrupts the wind flow, then you would also need to logic out the explanation of tornadoes forming elsewhere and then traveling into cities. Along with that, the large cities that have been hit by a tornado include Atlanta, St. Louis and Oklahoma City. Myth number three. If you've watched the newest Twister's movie, you likely remember the scene right in the very beginning where the kids go and try to hide under an overpass and at first they're like, "No, this isn't a good idea," but then they go and do it anyways and like three of them get ripped away and die. I guess that's not a spoiler, it's right at the beginning of the movie. I mean, I think that's like the whole premise of the movie. Is that? True. Yeah. So, this myth started because in 1991, a group of people filmed their experience surviving a tornado while they huddled underneath an overpass. The space between an overpass and the road can create a wind tunnel and because of this narrowing of space, the overpass creates and then essentially also as you climb up higher towards the base of the overpass or like where it connects to the ground and the road, the narrowing causes the wind to accelerate through that space because it needs to fit more air through a smaller space so everything speeds up which is more likely to pick you up and blow you away. The fourth myth we're going to cover is that a ditch or a low spot is the best place to hide and while this is mostly true that you do want to get into a low place because that protects you from the potential of flying debris. This may not be the best place as it can suddenly flood due to the immense amount of rain in a cloud that is being released. You probably don't want to get sucked up by a flash flood trying to hide from a tornado, so ditches are not. Don't go in a ditch. Keep driving. That's my advice. Do what my mom said, keep going. Judy knew the answer. So the last myth that we are going to talk about is that have you ever heard that opening the windows in your home will equalize the pressure and therefore your home will be safe? I believe that I have heard that impassing. Okay. Do you believe it? No. Thank you. That makes no sense at all. Thank you. So, most buildings are already not airtight, which means that any sort of air pressure movement is already being equalized and in addition to this, taking the time to open your windows takes away that from the time that you could be getting into a safe place and you're risking your life at that point. So the first step to staying safe, of course, is being aware and knowledgeable about tornadoes. Hi. Thank you for listening. You are knowledgeable about tornadoes. Good job. Simply speaking, a tornado watch is one conditions are favorable to tornado development. It's not that rotation has been seen or a storm is severe. It's simply that the wind and temperature and atmospheric conditions are showing signs of instability, which tornadoes need to develop. In this stage, you should be prepared in case a tornado warning is called. A tornado warning means that spotters or radar have confirmed a tornado and this is the time where you put your preparedness into action. The time to get to a safe place is immediately and there are serious risks to life and proper security. Tornadoes can develop very fast and this means that you have very little time for reacting. So being prepared is always the best option. And some of these seem like good things to do, not just related to tornadoes, but in other weather and earth events as well. Some of the ways that you can prepare or protect your property include updating homes with impact resistant windows and adding bracing to garage doors. Then there are some more maintenance options like trimming tree branches, especially over wires or your home or other structures and removing loose objects such as furniture, grills and decorations. Or I also thought like you could probably secure them down pretty easily. So removing or securing those. Planning the signs of tornadoes can also help you better prepare to seek shelter knowing how to identify a funnel cloud, recognizing the roar of a tornado and how it differs from thunder and recognizing a significant change in air pressure. Like if suddenly everything becomes calm, this can clue you into a tornado being in your direct vicinity. Having a plan and an alert system is the next on the list, which first and foremost, with the digital age and phone connected age that we are in, everyone should have a setting on their phone that notifies you of severe weather and tornado watches, tornado warnings, other severe weather warnings, identifying a safe location within your home and maybe even at work, have an emergency kit that includes some non-perishable food, water, first aid, batteries, flashlights and a battery powered radio. And then make sure that everyone within your home has a job. For example, growing up, actually I'll just say even more recent than that. When Logan was a baby baby, I mean he's a toddler now, I would still have the same role with him, but with my parents, my mom was preparing the basement, my dad was figuring out where the tornado was and my job was to get Logan and keep him calm. The preparations that my mom took into place in the basement was to, before we remodeled the basement, but clear out one of the corners of the basement, she would grab water, she would grab some food, she would grab some band-aids and stuff like that and have flashlights down there and make sure that we were okay to be down there for a little while if necessary. And my dad was, my dad's, I got my face plastered against the window watching the tornado form from my dad. So my dad is really good at watching and understanding what forecasters are saying. So he watches, wait, what is that guy's name? Blizzard Bill. He watches meteorologist news for fun. All the time, all the time. I also used to watch weather related stuff for fun when I was younger. All right, last and not least, you've identified all the information you need, you've created a plan, you've discussed this plan with everyone else. When the time comes, follow the plan. Don't go out in your front yard looking at the tornado. Get into your safe place. You are not Glen Powell or Helen Hunt. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. All right, that's, thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing. Thank you for listening to the episode about tornadoes. Good timing. All right. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening. Please take a moment to rate and subscribe from wherever you listen to Tragedy with a view. To get access to ad-free episodes, bonus content and more, please join us on our Patreon. The link will be in the show notes. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. And to share a story of your own, send us a campfire confessional email at tragedywithaview@gmail.com. We'll see you next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]