When I come out my front door, I seem to
hit set down over here, and so I went
south with all this area,
I was going to come over to the storms at
the same time as they did.
And I've seen it already hitting over
here. And I said, oh.
I camped out on the way with
it was sitting out here in the front of
the yard and it took off.
There's one of them.
Good evening, everyone, I'm Harold Taft,
and I'm Jane Jayroe.
As we know all too well, this is a
tornado season and what we know
or don't know about tornadoes can mean
the difference between life and death.
Most of the pictures you've just seen
were taken. What a massive storm hit
Paris earlier this month.
And Jane, I was there on Saturday after
it happened. I think there were three
funnels all together, maybe five.
And all that was a terrible storm.
It wasn't the worst we've ever seen.
I think the thing that's so frightening
to most of us about tornadoes is a
terrifying way. They seem to swoop down
from the sky.
So suddenly all tornadoes
come from thunderstorms and thunderstorms
come from clouds like these.
The clouds form when warm, moist
air rises, either due to heating or due
to lifting over a cold front.
The air rises, expands, cools and
condenses, forming clouds.
These cloud towers are updrafts of
rising air updrafts,
forming growing columns in the sky
several miles in diameter and over 10
miles high.
These towering clouds have now developed
into a thunderstorm, which could produce
heavy rain, hail, strong gusty
winds and even a tornado.
But now let's stop and look inside of a
thunderstorm.
The warm, moist air is drawn in from the
lower levels, forced upward, forming
the cloud and the precipitation.
The cold rain falling creates
a cold downdraft of wind called a gust
front.
This is a classical thunderstorm.
We're looking toward the west.
The upper winds are blowing from the
southwest.
Most of our tornadoes come from the
southwest and move about 30 miles
an hour. The storm has reached its peak
altitude and the top is being blown
downstream into an anvil by the
strong winds aloft.
Rain is falling in the northern part of
this thunderstorm.
Air flowing from the south is being drawn
upward into the storm.
As the air moves into the storm, it
produces a spiraling motion, much
like water draining out of a bathtub only
in reverse.
This spiraling motion produces a low
within the storm, a small rotating
circulation, usually less
than one to three miles in diameter.
The wall cloud and the tornado are an
outgrowth of this rotation.
Of course, we're all familiar with the
way that formation looks, and it looks
very scary, but most of us
tend to think of tornadoes as the world's
worst windstorms.
But what are they exactly?
You're right. They frequently are the
worst of the wind storms.
The tornado is a rapidly spinning column
of air, sometimes called a vortex,
although it sometimes is funnel shaped,
it'll take on a variety of shapes and
sizes.
Usually we see it as a large rotating
cylinder. Sometimes it has the appearance
of a long rope dangling from the clouds,
kind of twisting and turning, it doesn't
always appear to touch the ground.
Sometimes it'll seem to rise and
disappear, strike down again in another
place if the rotating column
of air does not touch the ground.
Then we call it a funnel cloud.
Now, whether you call it a twister or a
cyclone, as they do in Kansas or
a tornado as we do here in Texas and
Oklahoma, they're all the same thing.
They come in three sizes, 62
percent of all the tornadoes we see
around this part of the country are the
smaller mini tornadoes.
They last only a few minutes.
The winds are usually less than 100
miles an hour.
They're difficult to forecast.
And because they don't last very long,
warnings are also very difficult.
The medium or medium sized tornado
constitutes about 35 percent of all the
tornadoes. These are strong wind speeds
go up to one hundred and fifty to two
hundred miles an hour.
And the average path is two to four
hundred yards wide and about 10 miles
long. They'll last about 20 to 30
minutes. We do a pretty good job of
forecasting and warning of these middle
sized tornadoes.
The most devastating are the violent or
maxi tornadoes.
Now, these are the easiest to forecast
and the warnings are good.
Only two percent of all tornadoes are the
Maxcy class, but they kill 70 percent
of all tornado victims.
The path can be as wide as a mile and
a half and the length, about 25
miles winds, well, they can
be upwards of two hundred and fifty miles
an hour or stronger.
A tornado hits with these high winds,
getting a few minutes of advance warning
can mean living to tell about it.
And we'll tell you how to spot a tornado
yourself, next.
I'm sure you've been at the lake or
playing golf or something when the clouds
of suddenly look very bad and you
probably started wondering if perhaps
a tornado might be forming up there.
Well, now we're going to show you what to
look for because recognizing it
could save your life,
nearly all tornado producing
thunderstorms have similar
characteristics. Now, look at the model
again, looking at the cloud
in the west, see the rain to the right,
the rain free base, and then the wall
cloud from which the tornado will form.
This storm is only about 10 miles away.
Let's watch it in time lapse sequence.
Notice the absence of rain below the
cloud base and the towering updraft
above.
Now we're looking under the cloud base.
It's dark because there's about 10 miles
of cloud piled up above us.
We're looking west again, rain to the
right. That's to the north.
To the left, a rain free cloud base
at the southwest edge of the storm.
This is the part of the storm where
tornadoes are most likely to form.
Most tornadoes come out of this wall
cloud. Now, this is an isolated
lowering of the cloud base.
It marks an area of strong updrafts.
When you can see rotation, watch it very
carefully. If it doesn't produce a
tornado, it may kick off some very,
very strong winds.
Hail usually falls near or just
underneath this wall cloud.
Now, remember this sequence, heavy rain,
then large hail and then the tornado.
Sometimes from a distance, you
can see the vertical building cloud
towers rising above the wall cloud
looking west, rain to the north,
rain free base to the south,
wall cloud silhouetted against the sky.
The wall cloud will be connected to the
cloud base outside the rain area
in the southwest edge of the storm.
Sometimes you can actually see the
spiraling motion in the wall cloud.
This is where the tornado was forming.
The tornado is a violently rotating
column of air in contact with the ground.
Rotation is occurring on a broad scale,
and the tornado is a frequent outgrowth
of this rotation.
Watch the rotation in this wall
cloud and the small, detached clouds
beneath it.
Now, this is a tornado at
Cabot, Arkansas.
This is a time lapse sequence of the
storm showing all of the elements that
produce a tornado updrafts rotation.
And below the base, a wall cloud.
Out of this wall cloud comes a tornado.
Sometimes you might not see the funnel at
all. Now, that's true.
If it's right overhead, however, there
might be a tornado, even though the
funnel is not yet visible.
A whirling cloud of dust and debris may
be the first sign that the tornado is
forming. There's a connection between the
funnel and the debris cloud on the
ground, although you can't see it.
The debris cloud here is unmistakable.
The tornado is an entire column
of dust.
The dust, however, can make spotting kind
of difficult, especially the distance.
But look closely
now. We're looking at a tornado at
Lynchburg, Kansas.
What you can see in the distance is
obscured by the hills.
It looks like a cloud on the ground.
It is a cloud, a wall cloud.
As it approaches from the southwest, a
giant tornado reveals itself
that's making the damage path half a
mile wide.
30 minutes later, the same storm
strikes Salina, Kansas.
Here, the tornado shrinks to a slender
rope like filament, yet it is still
destructive.
Look at the debris cloud here.
It's difficult to spot a tornado at
night.
You may hear the sound of a tornado at
close range.
Remember, if you are in large
hail, the most dangerous part of the
storm is very near.
Sometimes lightning will illuminate the
cloud features such as this wall cloud.
This tornado over Tulsa, Oklahoma, shows
you a clue for night spotting
of tornadoes.
Look for flashes of light when the
tornado hits, the electrical power links.
A tornado can split into several smaller
tornadoes and later rejoin in the
one. This was the Xenia, Ohio,
tornado of 1974.
This wall cloud over Oshkosh, Wisconsin,
produced a multiple vortex tornado
that was really fantastic.
To conclude, here's the life cycle of a
tornado, as you might see it first,
looking toward the southwest edge of the
storm, you'll see a wall cloud.
Three or four minutes later, a damaging
tornado forms from the wall cloud
just as the tornado forms the
thunderstorms that reach its greatest
size.
Tornado lifespan last for about a minute
to over an hour.
This particular one stayed on the ground
for another 15 minutes.
Here we can see it near the end of its
life. It shrinks into the rope stage,
yet it is still destructive even as
we watch it. It leveled a farmhouse just
across that row of trees over there a few
miles away.
We can't prevent tornado devastation,
but with early warning, we certainly can
save your life.
The violent release of energy of these
super storms that produces tornadoes is
awesome.
I showed you some pictures a while ago of
a tornado at Salina, Kansas.
Now, here is what the Hook
Echo looked like on the radar
screen.
And here is a supercell that spawned that
same tornado as seen by the satellite
and in time lapse sequence.
Now, this time lapse takes about three
hours notice.
How it just seems to explode.
Now we're going to look at it enlarged
eight times.
It's no wonder that they do so much
damage.
Well, during these periods of severe
weather, we'll watch the radar on the
satellite, you watch the sky.
Knowing what to look for when you watch
the sky can certainly make us feel
better. And for professionals like
Harold, watching the sky is a science,
a science that has new tricks up its
sleeve.
Tornadoes strike all over the world, and
we certainly have our share here in North
America
and this part of the country, we're
especially aware of these deadly storms
because here we regularly see the weather
conditions that cause them.
The elements that combine to form a
twister may be rapidly forming when
a low pressure system is drawing in warm,
moist air from the Gulf, hot, dry
air from southwest Texas and cold
surface air from the north.
When the dry air meets the moist Gulf
Air, a squall line forms.
Turbulence grows as a northern
approaches.
As these storms move under the influence
of the strong jet stream winds aloft,
they become more intense.
The breeding ground for tornadoes.
This breeding ground in the spring
extends from north Texas into Kansas.
It's a familiar tornado alley,
but tornadoes can and do occur in
every State of the Union and in every
month of the year.
Now, here's generally how these tornadoes
shift with the season.
About twenty five percent of our most
violent tornadic storms occurred during
March and April. The maximum is in
northeast Texas, 40 percent of
the tornadoes form in May and June
and are concentrated in the panhandle.
They're scattered during July and August
and concentrated along the Gulf Coast
during the hurricane season.
Only six percent of all tornadoes occur
during the winter months, and many of
the winter tornadoes are killers.
They stay on the ground a time.
Most of our tornadoes occurred during the
late afternoon or early evening, just
after the hottest part of the day.
More people can be warned of storms via
television and any other media.
Another good reason to stay right here on
five.
And of course, we have the tools and the
experienced weather team to keep you
informed about tornadoes, and scientists
are always looking for new ways to track
tornadoes
and meteorologists are excited about a
new kind of radar.
Research to develop better means of
tornado detection is a joint project
at the National Severe Storms Laboratory
at Norman, Oklahoma.
This giant dome houses the complicated
and expensive Doppler radar equipment.
This next generation radar measures
motions within the storm.
It's a lot like that used by law
enforcement officials, but much more
complicated.
Three scope's, major reflectivity,
velocity and spectrum with display,
you see it is complicated, but
when it is perfected, it will tell us
a few minutes earlier of the impending
danger of a tornado.
Of course, keeping track of tornadoes is
easier if we know more about them.
Well, that's right, Jane, but since it's
hard to make an appointment with a
tornado for a study session, we'll have
to try something else.
We can't bring the tornado into the
laboratory for study, but equipment such
as this has helped us to understand and
to explain some of the vagaries of the
tornado.
A complicated series of fans
draws smoke into a funnel cloud.
Strange damage patterns were explained
when multiple tornadoes were generated
with this equipment.
One tornado rotating about another.
When a tornado chaser filmed this unusual
tornado sequence, it shows a family
of tornadoes dancing and circling around,
coming and going, we recognize
it from the laboratory experiments.
Watch this. It was taken near Orianna,
Oklahoma.
Of course, one thing research hasn't done
yet is find a way to prevent tornadoes.
So what we have to do is to find a way to
live with them or at least live
through them. A handbook to survive on
this, next.
Chris, all these pictures and information
we've been digesting,
they're not academic situations, they
really happen
in real life pictures.
And I could show you dozens of slides,
show the same thing.
Let's just take a look at one other right
now. This was a tornado that formed over
Grapevine, Texas, in the July the Fourth
storm of 1976.
Notice the rotating wall cloud
or donut cloud and the tornado pendant
beginning to form and hang down
underneath of it, the rapidly rotating
air forces, the solid matter or the
particles out toward the edge.
And if you've ever wondered what's inside
that funnel, this one taken over
Benbrook, Texas, and it's dissipating
stage shows the hollow core of
the funnel. Now, two things I wanted to
leave with you before we close tonight,
and that is two things that you should do
in the event of a tornado.
We used to tell you, go to the southwest
corner of your house. But since most
storms will come from that direction,
that will very likely caved in on you.
Instead, if you can survive it all,
go to the center of your house where you
have the most support.
And we used to tell you, open the
windows, we tell you again.
Now, that is not necessary at all.
The best houses will leak enough air
so that there is not that great pressure
differential can cause an explosion.
Instead, the strong winds blowing
exert outward pressure on all of the
walls and the roof.
This wall will go first and then these
walls will finally cave in.
If you open the window, you increase
this external pressure on the walls
and they'll collapse.
I have a photograph that shows this very
dramatically. See that how the wall
just peeled out like the peeling on an
orange. A couple of years
or so ago, there was a tornado just west
of Cleveland. And I think this
tells the whole story right here.
Look at this one coming up on the
shopping center, the storm in the
background, the lady running for her car.
And then these two ladies, as the storm
approached even closer, didn't even know
it was there. They're smiling at the
cameraman. Well, Jane, I think the lesson
is this. Some of us are weather wise
and some of us are otherwise
certainly pays to be weather wise,
Harold. And, you know, as we've told you
this evening, there's no way of promising
that you or your loved ones won't wind
up in the path of a tornado.
So if the unthinkable does happen, you
should know what to do and what not
to do.
Whenever the conditions are right for the
formation of a tornado, we try to help
you be prepared.
We issue a tornado watch.
And that means you can go about your
daily routine, but be alert and watch and
listen for weather developments.
When a tornado has actually been
confirmed, then a tornado warning
is issued and that means take action
immediately.
The storms usually move out of the
southwest, so don't huddle in the
southwest corner of your house, but
instead get out, seek shelter in
a hallway or in an interior closet,
any small room such as a bathroom.
But stay away from glass and windows.
If your home is an upper floor apartment,
you live in a very vulnerable target
area. Get off the second floor
apartment just as quickly as you can.
If you live in a mobile home, get out.
Every mobile home park should have a
permanent shelter structure for resident.
Mobile homes are not built to withstand
tornadoes.
Most office buildings can stand
in a storm, but the windows in your
office can kill you.
To get to safety, go to an interior
hallway on the lowest floor, stay away
from glass windows and glass doors, and
stay away from north or south hallways.
Try not to be caught out shopping when
the weather is bad.
But if you're at the grocery store head
for the reinforced coolers in the rear of
the store.
If you're at the shopping mall, stay out
of open areas, find a designated shelter
or an interior hallway away from windows
with a solid wall.
Don't try to make it to your car.
In your car is just about the most
dangerous place you can be.
If you can't make it to a building from
your car, get out and get away to
a culvert, a bridge or just a ditch.
Don't try to outrun the storm.
School bus drivers should follow that
same routine with the children, and every
school district should be certain that
every driver knows exactly what to do
in the event of a tornado.
Your schools should have a tornado plan
and they should practice it on a regular
basis.
If you work in the open, get away
from the construction site and stay away
from any kind of vehicle or heavy
equipment.
Any time you're caught in the open, the
rules are the same get under covered,
there's no culvert laid out in a ravine
and if there's no shelter at all, then
lie flat on the ground, but make just as
small a target as possible.
But don't try to hide under a tree.
If the tornado doesn't get you, the
lightning will.
I've seen a lot of tornado damage and
I've talked to a lot of survivors.
In almost every case, they knew what
to do and they did it fast,
if you know what to do and do it
immediately, your chances of
walking away from the aftermath of a
tornado will be much
better.
We sincerely hope you never have to use
those tips, but to be safe,
review them with the members of your
family.
Well, it's even a good idea, Jane, to
practice them, have a drill in your home
and make sure that everyone knows what to
do if a tornado sweeps down near
you.
We've seen some fascinating pictures
tonight and we hope you've learned
something.
Meanwhile, keep watching the skies.
We'll do the same and keep watching us
right here on Channel 5.
Goodnight. Goodnight. Well.