I Don't Know About That - Tornados

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

In this episode, the team discusses tornados with assistant professor of meteorology and planetarium director, Rachel Humphrey. Follow Rachel on Twitter @GoAskAScientist as well as the planetarium @SCSUPlanetarium ! For free parking at the St. Cloud State University Planetarium, visit web.stcloudstate.edu/planetarium/class_group_shows.html Our merch store is now live! Go to idontknowaboutthat.com for shirts, hoodies, mugs, and more! Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/IDKAT for ad free episodes, bonus episodes, and more exclusive perks! Tiers start at just $2! Go to JimJefferies.com to buy tickets to Jim's upcoming tour, The Moist Tour.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Lions, tigers, bears. Oh my. Welcome, welcome, welcome. What's going on? Hello, everyone. The accent. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining the podcast.

Here you are. We're all going to learn things, and if there's any young children in the car with you right now, block your ears, kiddlywinks, because we're going to be swearing. Cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt, cunt. What was with that intro? What was not with it? You guys all enjoyed it?

There was nothing wrong with that. You were all having a giggle? Yeah, usually, you know. I try to change things up. I do different characters. That's my old man who's probably gay, but he has a wife and kids, but he works for NPR Voice. He's got a big library.

I know when I go home to my wife, she's always berating me. Oh, you're always off your dance classes and whatnot. At the Turkish baths. Yeah, yeah. I like to have a lovely steam.

Have you guys ever gone to one of those? No. By accident. There was one in Budapest. You don't get a prolapse asshole out of like mine just through sneezing. I remember when we were in Budapest there was like one in the hotel. It was like a weird marble pool.

My gay's in Budapest. You didn't go to it. I did. I didn't go into the steamer, but I just walked around the pool and looked at things and I didn't trust it. No, I've never been to a bathhouse. What's the benefit? Just there's spa stuff? You get gay sex.

Oh, okay. Well, they've also got the Korean spas and stuff like that in LA. I think they're legit spas. There's regular spas. There's services. You can get massages and facials and all that stuff, but everybody walks around naked. There's bathhouses, male ones

that if you're in the know, I'm a nut. I'm a nut. I'm a nut. You are wearing an anal sex t-shirt. You see a doorway and you go in there and then you go, oh, this is very good. Hey, fellas.

Happy April 18th. Mama said, the darkened bathhouse. It sounded like it. I'm not. What's the dodgiest place you've ever walked into? Where you're going, oh, I shouldn't be here. Down the street. This is all going on.

It's true. Down the street from here. He goes to a strip club by the train track. Right down the street. Yeah, that was tricky. It's right by a medical chemical plant that has leaks every so often. Yeah, it does. And then there's a sewage treatment plant.

The women with the three titties. And two doors down is the beauty school. You're giving away where you live now. I'm not telling you what road. That's a progression of life. You start off at the beauty school. I can't be arsed doing this. Then you become a stripper.

Then you end up in the chemical plant. And then the train tracks. That's a strip club. They don't take their clothes off, though, right? No, in the chemical plant. And then the train tracks. That's a strip club. They don't take their clothes off, though, right? No, it's fully nude. So there's no alcohol. I've never been in there, but I drive by, they say, fully nude. Yeah, yeah, because it's a gentleman's club.

I used to live right near there, too. I don't know why. It's for gentlemen. They come in and go, hello, kind lady. I am what they call a gentleman. You don't seem to be wearing enough clothes. Let me get you an outfit for I am what they call a gentleman. You don't seem to be wearing enough clothes. Let me get you an outfit for I am a gentleman. Can I touch your breast?

Hold on. There's a puddle of cum. Let me put my jacket over it. Oh, how do I want you to sleep? Very nice guys in there. Yeah, the gentleman is like on the neon sign. He has like a fedora on and a cigarette it's like sinatra what's it called you know it's called the gentleman's club okay the strip club

we used to always go to in college was called the frisky kitty it was in van nuys that sounds fun and it was rough i was wanting to go to miami club stir crazy that was um not good at all and like you would walk in and all the strippers would be at the bar eating wings. They didn't have anyone there on that. And then around Christmas, in the lot where you would park, they'd sell Christmas trees. And I think that was so like, dudes would be there drinking

at the strip club and then they would come home late and be like, but I got you a Christmas tree. Babe, babe, babe. I got a Christmas tree. Wow, this is why you were out late. Yes. Why are you covered in glitter? The Christmas tree. Wow, this is why you're out late. Why are you covered in glitter? The Christmas tree. It was flopped. There's one in England that I've driven by my whole life

and I was like, I got to show up at some point. I walk in and in the bar there's a big sign that says, beef stew, $3.50 a bowl. I was like, no, that can't be good. Your sister had a party I've've been watching it on social media. Oh, yeah. Fucking hell, man.

That looked like a hell of a do. I was there. I know. Forrest looked like he was having a great time. Forrest was there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one of those inflatable, flappy dudes. Yeah, what was with the floppy guy that was meant to be at the front of the car park selling cars?

Why was that there? It was a prop from a Comedy Central show that got canceled. And I i was like yeah that might be helpful or useful at some point do people enjoy that they dance around it yeah yeah natalie i remember her video there was some really good tacos there and they had a taco it was really good a mariachi band the band was really good yeah but a mariachi band and tacos like i get it. I get it. You're from Mexico. It was a mariachi. It was a banda. Yeah. I know the difference now.

Potato, potato. The best part is that it was a Jersey Shore themed party. And he had everything. They sent out four different invites to people. So we got the Jersey Shore one, but everyone just dressed up as cowboy. He's the only one in Jersey Shore. Because I was looking at the people in the crowd. I'm like, I don't even understand how any of these people are Jersey Shore.

Your brother looked like he was a goth. If my brother had a party and I invited you guys along and I said, oh, it's just a regular party. And all we did was eat Vegemite meat pies and listen to men at work. Jeez, you're clinging onto this culture of yours a little bit hard. And we're in little australia yeah yeah yeah we're just like this uh you can't wear your fucking wear your flip-flops have corks hanging off your fucking hats well um for for a long time i was there with

my cousin and and um we were the only white people there and then when other white people showed up i was kind of pissed off i was like we were we were like, we're the colonizers here. But you know what is, I asked Lisa, I go, how many people are you related to here? And what'd you say? Like 90%,

80%. Yeah. You can, you can fuck anyone at the party. I'm in. It doesn't stop. Third or fourth cousins. Okay.

It must get confusing. I have to draw out a family tree every time it's like yeah well maybe maybe there's potential there all right that's a joke that's a joke i'll tell you the one thing about the band though is um they didn't need to be amplified like every single instrument had a microphone on it and then they were so loud yeah being your neighbor must be a fucking nightmare my friend Devin and I were leaving one of his neighbors goes you two look adorable

we just came from the Castillos and she just gives me a look of like ooh turns out he doesn't know his neighbors they just want to kill him I thought they would have known who the loud music was coming from constantly I thought your friend was Haley Joel Osment and then I looked at his Instagram

and I was like, that's not him. He looks scared though. Devin? Yeah, he looked a little bit nervous. He was like out of his element. And people thought I was out of my element for that video, but that was a joke. I was fine.

We're as far as dancing. Oh, no, no. I'm just standing. You didn't see the video? I saw the video. No, you said that you were just doing a video. Yeah. I'm saying in regular life when the cameras were off. No, no, no. I didn't dance.

So what were you doing that was vastly different? You're like, I only did that for the video. The rest of the time I was high-fiving people and throwing dice in the alleyway. No, no. I'm saying Jack's friend looked nervous. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We danced our asses off, though. But you told me that your neighbors don't care as long as it's Mexican music, right?

Yeah, yeah. Every party we've thrown with a band there, Mariachi, no complaints. But the second we have a live rock band, we've had it like once or twice. Cops are there by 10 p.m. Get the shit out of here. I'm pretty sure I've seen neighbors like... Gentrification. Get it out of here.

I just got to the street and I see neighbors in like folding chairs in the sidewalk. Just enjoying the show. Like, all right. There are people in folding chairs when we were living. And what are they doing? That is listening to music and drink a beer on the street.

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes every now and then, even though we don't know them, they'll walk in and like, Hey, I live down the street. Can I come over?

Yeah. Fuck it. Have a taco. I'll tell you what though. It was a good, like tacos are really good and a lot of alcohol. You wouldn't, I walked in and your sister just gave me like a spicy vodka shot or something. Oh yeah. I wasn't expecting that. I thought it was just vodka. That's why I didn't go because I'm completely sober right now.

No booze, no weed. And I knew that if I went there, I would have to drink. You have to drink. So I'm going to be in Durham. and I knew that if I went there, I would have to drink. You have to drink. All right, so I'm going to be in Durham. And I'll be in Charlotte. No, no, Tucson and Rancho Mirage.

Ah, Tucson and Rancho Mirage. Come out. Drink up the last bits of summer. Enjoy. One of them's in an amphitheater. In Tucson. Yeah, tap doors, man. Yeah, get in there.

We're going to be outside. We're going to be outside. We're going to be telling jokes, and that's all I'm going to do. I don't know what the rest of you will do. Amos and JJ will be there. The show is very good at the moment. I'm honed. Just come off a big tour of Australia. You want to, oh, geez, I'm good right now.

August 27th, Rancho Mirage at Agua Caliente Resort. You only have Australia references in your action. Yeah, it's a lot a bit like, oh, what's with the new prime minister? Yeah, the dollar's tanking. September 8th. It's not actually. Okay. No, whatever.

I don't know. September 8th, Durham, North Carolina. The Durham Performing Arts Center, September 9th at Ovens Auditorium. That sounds warm. Yeah. Ovens Auditorium. September 10th at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Charlotte, Maryland. Franklin's Auditorium. September 10th at Cobb Energy

Performing Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Woo! Atlanta. Yeah. We're going to play golf with Jack's dad. Yeah.

Oh, that's fun. He said he wanted a father-son experience. So I'm sending my friends. Yeah. And then don't forget to subscribe to our Patreon, right?

Yeah. Patreon.com slash idcat follow us on Instagram at idcatpodcast and you can get merch at idontknowaboutthat.com like my bathhouse shirt did Luis's uncle go wee at the party did he show up? nah he's still in Mexico

was there any gritos there? I think Jack actually did one at some point. Is that cultural appropriation? He told me to. You were in a cowboy outfit and

stuff. I brought Modelo's. Cultural appropriation is very difficult because what they do is with

cultural appropriation. Sometimes you're like, I don't want to do this. And then like a Mexican person will go, do the noise. And you go, it's a trap. I come back from hawaii and they're all they say aloha then you do it then you're doing the hang loose hands like that and then

in 10 years they'll be like can you believe that we used to go to hawaii and say aloha to the natives that was oh don't call them natives oh god well cuz hey cuz you're not supposed to say um in Hawaii. My point is that you can go and say, oh, aloha, all that type of stuff, and then you say konnichiwa and all those different things. In Hawaii? A lot of Asians there. But yeah. Big Japanese population there. At least on Oahu.

Yeah. Anyway, so my point is sometimes with the cultural appropriation harbor was you're like i know i know you gotta do it do it do it they they they get you to do it they get you to do it and then like other times you're not allowed to do it but every time you go to like africa they're selling you knickknacks and shit like that they're selling you all that fucking gift shop shit that they fucking make and then you might go to thailand they're selling you knickknacks and shit like that they're selling you all that fucking gift shop shit that they fucking make and then you might go to thailand they're selling you shit all the time and then when you get home don't put it on the wall i did yeah i did i bought a lot of like things in india and and i remember when i came back people were like you can't have that

in your house i'm like what what are you talking about you're supporting the local community who makes this art that's right crazy the aboriginals they're always flogging shit with dot paintings on they're dot painting everything they they like that's a that's a trap they've sell them to you and they're like you're not allowed to use it i got i got like i got like a boomerang that i just brought back now that someone gave me as a gift that was an original bit of artwork, the boomerang type of thing. And I don't know if I hang it up or whatever. It's like Uluru, which is the big rock in the middle of Australia.

You're not allowed to walk on it anymore. And I'm sounding like an old man. You used to be able to bloody walk on the fucking thing. And then the Aboriginals came in and they said, you can't walk on it anymore. And so they can't say you can't walk anymore because they go, it's like a church to them. And I like i accept that i fully do if that's you but the flip side is you could walk on the roof of the sistine chapel all fucking day and i'd give zero fucks all right westminster

abbey you could have construction up there 24 7 just them putting their foots through the fucking roof but you're not religious yeah but I grew up I was born into that religion they're not religious either they are and they're not now this is this is cut this out no no leave it in they believe in a dream time a dream time is like the same as

fables that you get from ancient Greece where these are stories cautionary tales and whatnot about how the land was built and how certain animals got their body parts etc etc but i think no one in their right mind believes this no one goes we have rivers because a frog drank too much water and vomited your dream town your dream time is about to end yes the midnight oil reference very good forest there's about four people in the car

that are like sitting like this we have a lot of Australian listeners. That probably have never listened to Midnight Oil. Is that the band or the song? I don't know what you guys are talking about at all. There's a band, Midnight Oil. Your dream world is just about to end. That's a good song. You'd like it, Jack. You'd never listen to Midnight Oil?

I think he's playing me something. You'd like Midnight Oil. The guy never listen to Midnight Oil? I think he's played me some. You'd like Midnight Oil. Is that the guy who dances weird? They're back touring again. He went into politics for a very long time. He was the environmental minister of Australia. Let's start the fucking podcast. Please welcome our guest, Rachel Humphrey.

Hello, Rachel. Now it's time to play Yes, no, yes, no. Yes, no, yes, no. Beautiful. In tune. Now it's time to play a snow, a snow. Beautiful. In tune. That was lovely. So, Rachel, she works at a university where she talks to students.

I can tell that already. You've got books behind you, lots of academia. You're a big fan of toy dogs. So is your specialty toy dogs? No, I wish. Yeah, I know. It'd be good. If you're the best in any field, you can make money. You know what I mean? And someone would go, she's the lady to talk to for toy dogs. You've also got a wolf. Are you a dog lover? I am. I very much am.

Yes. Are dogs involved in what we're about to talk about? No. No. I would hope not. You also have a ghost behind you. Are we going to be talking about the paranormal? Hard no.

Oh, I could bring it closer, actually. As my Yankees cap falls down. Maybe this looks a little bit more of a clue. That's exactly what we're talking about. Casper? Casper the angry ghost? What she has in her hand. You can hold it up.

You can do some motions with it. What does it do? Dancing ghost. It takes Dorothy away. It's not a go. Like, what does it do? How's it? Dancing ghosts. It takes Dorothy away to us. It's not a ghost. Oh, tornadoes. Yeah, spin it around. Yeah.

Looks more like a ghost. It does. It does. Yeah. What's his name? Terry the Tornado? You know, I actually don't know. Oh, Stormy, apparently, according to the tag.

It's Kylie Jenner's daughter. Rachel Humphrey is an assistant professor of meteorology and science education at St. Cloud State University. And is also the planetarium director at St. Cloud State. If you're ever in there and you want to reserve free planetarium shows, you can do that by visiting this website that I'm not going to say the whole thing. We'll put it up on our site. And on social media, you can find on Twitter visiting uh this website that i'm not going to say the whole thing we'll put it up on our site um and on social media you can find on twitter at go ask a scientist or the anthropomorphic planetarium projectors that's their twitter handle right at s c s u p wait s c s u planetarium. Yeah, there you go. How did you get started in meteorology?

Oh my gosh. So I grew up in New York and when I was about 15 years older, so my mom and I and our two dogs, we went camping in upstate New York and we were nearly killed by a very strong storm system called a derecho. And we had no warnings, no nothing. This is way back before, you know, smartphones or anything like that. And it was absolutely

terrifying. And after I stopped being scared, I started to wonder why and how that happened. But I was too intimidated to go into meteorology because it's a lot of math and physics. And so, I actually went for a teaching degree, got my degree in elementary education and sociology, and then realized that small children can be more intimidating than the math and physics required. So yeah, so I actually went back to do a degree in meteorology and then went to grad school for atmospheric science as well. So yeah. All right. Do you know anything about tornadoes, Jim? Oh,

not really. I like, I know, I know where they sort of happen. I know what they do. I don't know why they're caused. Okay. Yeah.

I've got to give a quick shout out to my cousin, Sean, who on Saturday was in the middle of a tornado, just had time to park his car and then was like enveloped by darkness. Did he get up? I think his car lifted a little bit. A street sign went through his windshield. His car was like completely fucked.

So good job for surviving, Sean. Congratulations. Yeah. Survival is good. Yeah, it's a good thing. You did a really good job on that. OK, well, I'm going to ask Jim some questions about tornadoes. And when he's done answering them, Rachel, you're going to grade them on accuracy.

Zero through 10. 10's the best. Kelly's going to grade them on confidence. I'm going to grade them on et cetera. Add them all together. Add them all together. If you score 21 through 30, Jim, Twister, the movie. 11 through 20, Twister, the game.

The Twister pinball machine is very good. Okay. 11 through 20, Twister, the game. Not the pinball machine. You good okay 11 through 20 twister the game not the pinball machine you know the one with the dots it's not as good i know okay uh zero through 10 twister the titty that's the other one titty twister yeah yeah i wouldn't go twister the titty whatever it was twister the movie twister the game titty twister twister the titty okay you never played twister the game you Titty Twister. Twister the titty. Okay. You've never played Twister the game?

You've never played Twister the game? You don't know what it is? It's the one with the colored dots and the spinner. Oh, the actual Twister. What do they call that in Australia? Right hand. Twisterloo? Yeah.

We have it in Australia. It's called Me Too. Okay. It's like, how is that game? That game could never be brought up. Now, that was really just for dodgy uncles to fucking get in the way, wasn't it? Just be on top of the couch. And, like, whoever pulls out Twister at a party is someone

who's trying to touch somebody. What is a tornado? A tornado is a circular spiraling wind pocket that goes like that. And it's in a cone shape that goes up and it can destroy anything in its path. Name some different types of tornadoes. Big ones, small ones, fat ones, short ones. You got twisters, twisties. Twisties. I tell you, have you ever had a twisty, Rachel?

I have not Okay, that's like an Australian sort of like a cheezer type of puff type of thing, but they're in twisty tornado-y shapes I think they were rejects They were meant to be cheezels, right? And they came out all really weird looking and they went, no, we'll just call them twist

twisties have a twisty they're lovely okay so it's pretty straight without twisties that's the that's the slogan do you want to describe the life cycle of a tornado uh well it's born it would have something to do with a bit of wind, and then the wind was like, ooh, and then it hits like it goes up a cul-de-sac and it swings back around. That's the first start of the twist. And it's for a cul-de-sac. I like that. I'm going to have to incorporate that.

Can't go this way. Can't go this way. It's a twist. Turn around. Twist back on a one-way system. Yep. They always seem to happen in flat plain areas, very little hills. You never see one on top of a mountain.

That's what I know about the tornadoes. They always like to have anything that's like the middle of the country, Oklahoma. The first time I was in Kansas and I was at the airport and it had like a twister bunker like this is where you go if the tornado comes I'm like I was like I'm not in Kansas anymore but I was

so it's well how are they produced how about that big twist those it's the cul-de-sac it would be weather formations tightened up into twisty things. Okay.

What kind of clouds do tornadoes form? Serious ones. Okay. That's good. Okay. Which direction do tornadoes spin? Clockwise. Okay.

Actually, that was anti-clockwise. Anti-clockwise. What is a tornado family oh that's when a whole group of them there's three you see him sometimes like three of them this is not like like one it's never like one tornado they always branch off and they've got little tiny sibling ones what is a supercell uh a supercell would be a large tornado it's almost hitting hurricane cyclone levels but it's not it's just a tornado it's a big one and then when is the season when's the season for tornado season um well if kelly i would say late summer going into autumn and what is the rating scale for tornadoes like strong yeah it'd be class one to one to ten

the name maybe two or i don't don't care okay what is the range of wind speeds that have been measured in tornadoes and like what's the highest one ever recorded highest wind speed would be 700 miles an hour 700 700 that's pretty good okay what's what's like the average the average is 200 miles an hour and then on average how large are tornadoes like across and what is the largest one ever recorded across the average 20 meters across yeah and the largest one now the largest one 200 200 meters across. Yeah. And then how long do they last for? Like how far do they travel?

They travel from Kansas to Omaha. Like miles. How many miles do you think? 15 miles. What's the longest one? Kansas to Omaha, 15 miles. Like length of travel. What's that?

What's the longest one that's ever been traveled? 700 miles. Okay. Damn. Where is Tornado Alley? what's that what's the longest one that's ever been trapped 700 miles okay damn um where is tornado alley uh kansas okay and then what parts of the world do tornadoes occur in middle of america is where tornadoes and i to be honest with you i haven't seen or heard of another tornado in pop culture or anything outside of North America in my entire life. Okay.

Can tornadoes be detected before they happen? A little bit. It's the same as, oh, my hip's playing up. Oh, it might be a tornado coming up. Oh, I don't like that. What's it like? It's like when your wife's in a mood. You can tell a little bit out

and you go, is everything all right? And they go, everything's fine. But you know it's not. It's like tornadoes. Okay. And then all of a sudden you're in trouble. A couple more questions here. What's it like in the center of a tornado?

Calm. The eye of a hurricane, the eye of a storm, the eye of a tornado. Nothing's happening in the middle. Okay. What sound do tornadoes make? How do you spell that? Burly, burly, burly, burly, burly. Okay, last question.

How do you stay safe during a tornado? What can you do to prepare? Go into your tornado hutch underneath your house or you get into a bathtub and you put a mattress on top of you. Yeah. What if you were like, you weren't like just gonna field run that's aware no you don't want to be you want to be in open areas you don't want to be underneath things that could fall on top of you you don't want to be there you want to be out in the open and your car stay in your car yeah sure okay hey

Rachel how did Jim doing his knowledge of tornadoes? Your 10. 10's the best. One. You were right on quite a few things. And then there are other things that we can tweak a little bit. Right. So, yeah.

It's a silly American fucking weather pattern, isn't it? Bloody tornadoes. Is that what only happens in America? I'm about to find out it doesn't. That one's already wrong. I know hurricanes and cyclones happen in other countries, but I've never seen like tornadoes in any other pop culture apart from America.

That's because pop culture only exists in America. Oh, God. It's only the loudest anyway. Yeah. So what number would you give them? Six and a half- maybe all right maybe five i don't know i mean with my students i always give partial credit so five to six five to six hey we're all students i'm dumber than a student i haven't even chosen to do this course.

I've just wandered in off the street, given a few tornado facts, laid them down. If that's not worth a fucking six, I don't know what is. Who has confidence, Kelly? I'll give him a four on confidence. I'll give you a minus one. Titty twister. Jim said a tornado is...

I'll live. Have you ever had one? Of course I've had one and you lived you think i've gone 45 years in this planet no one's tweaked one of my nipples into a twisting motion his first one was last week yeah i think i've given you one i think so probably i don't know what about jack you've had him no no he's never given me one. Workers comp. Hello. There's no HR department here, Jack. So, Jeff said a tornado is circulating.

What's a tornado? Rachel? So, yeah, this is, you were actually pretty close there. So, yeah, it's basically a circulation that is underneath a very specific type of cloud. It's actually associated with a storm called a supercell. And you can answer questions later, like what type of cloud it is. You can say all that. Yeah, so there are these very big storms

called supercells where the entire updraft rotates. And sometimes if the conditions are just right, the circulation that is in the updraft actually makes its way down to the ground, makes connection with the ground. Now, the cloud itself, the circulation that is in the updraft actually makes its way down to the ground, makes connection with the ground. Now, the cloud itself, the funnel cloud doesn't have to reach the ground in order for there to be a tornado. As long as there's just a wisp of dust moving or swirls on the ground, that is enough to show that the circulation has gone from the cloud base down to the ground. And so you have a tornado at that point.

So, yeah. Yeah. What happens if a plane can fly over tornadoes, right? I was just thinking. They fly above clouds. Yeah, I know. But I didn't know if there was wind above. Yeah.

Here's the thing. You wouldn't want to bring a plane anywhere near one of these thunderstorms, supercells or any other kind of thunderstorm, because of the turbulence. So, these types of thunderstorms especially have a lot of, you know, they have a very strong region of updraft motion, and these can exceed 100 meters per second. So, definitely nothing to mess around with. And they have intense downdrafts as well, which can bring down your rain, your hail, all that fun stuff. And so you really wouldn't want to be in an aircraft or have a drone or anything like that around there because the turbulence could literally tear it apart and that would be bad. Yeah. Some different types of tornadoes. Jim said big, small, fat, short, twisters and twisties. What are you doing there? Yeah. I mean, that is sort of true.

Tornadoes take lots of different sizes, lots of different shapes. They do go through a different, you know, through a different life cycle and everything like that. Are there names for them? You're giving them to, we're trying to, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, no, no. But there are different stages, right? So there's the developing stage, the mature stage, at which point it can look like a cone or it can look like a wedge, right? Where it's wider than it is tall. Some of them never get past the little rope stage where they're little, you know, needly looking things. What's the one, I grew up in Florida, they're always over the water.

Yeah. I forget what those are called. Are those tornadoes? So, they look like tornadoes. they look like tornadoes. They look like tornadoes. They're called water spouts. Water spouts. Yeah. So water spouts form differently.

They actually form from the surface up as opposed to true supercell tornadoes, which form from the cloud base down. So water spouts occur when you have fair weather cumulus clouds, just, you know, big cotton ball, fluffy looking clouds that form on fair weather days. A lot of times when you have that rapid rising motion that allows the clouds to build up vertically, that stretches the atmospheric column down below. And so you get this little spin up that goes up like that. When they move on shore, they can do damage. And sometimes you can have supercell tornadoes over water. So it just depends on what you're talking about. Fair weather water spouts or actually tornadic water spouts.

Most of them, thankfully, are fair weather water spouts. We're not talking about water spouts right now. Correct. You are true. I thought there were tornadoes. Because there was a giant tornado that went through downtown Miami back. I remember that was like really rare. Who let this guy in?

We used to drive towards those water spouts on boats. Because I don't think they were that bad. We used to drive towards them. Yeah, again, like the fair weather water spouts. I mean, I wouldn't recommend going into it. But yeah. We're tough. We were tough.

Tough growing up in Florida. The life cycle of a tornado. Jim says they're born two tornadoes have sex and then it's born and then goes on a cul-de-sac i did like the cul-de-sac and then yeah yeah and then yeah never in the mountains yeah so that's actually not true actually so okay i mean i do like the atmospheric cul-de-sac explanation. But yeah, so tornadoes have been seen. They've been observed in all 50 states, for example, even in mountainous regions.

You wouldn't get them in California. There's never been a tornado in California. I'll be telling you. I look out the window every day. I promise you there have been. I promise. But yeah, so there actually have been tornadoes in mountainous regions. Thankfully, they don't tend to be very strong.

But yeah, no, there's kind of this urban misconception or this urban myth that they can't hit cities, they can't go into mountains. And they absolutely can, as long as the physics and the other conditions are right. But why do we never see like one in Manhattan just tearing up the Ray's Pizza place? Like, why doesn't that happen then? If they can. Well, Staten Island just got hit by one a couple of years ago. So that's not- I've been to Staten Island.

If you put a tornado through the joint, it would look better. It says here California averages 11 tornadoes a year. Whoa. That was Miami. That's downtown Miami. There was one in Miami. I remember when that happened. That's like right in downtown.

Yeah. It happens. Yeah. Mother nature doesn't care. Like, you know, she's going to do what she's going to do. So, yeah.

We drove towards that one too. So wait, so, but the life cycle is, it's like what's the so it just it forms and then so yeah so the life cycle is that you have these um these supercells and supercells thankfully are very rare to begin with right not every thunderstorm becomes a supercell very very few less than 10 and then occasionally if conditions are just right again tornadoes themselves are pretty rare but if conditions are just right, again, tornadoes themselves are pretty rare, but if conditions are just right, once you have this rotating updraft, the interplay between the downdraft, so the stuff that's coming out of the back of the storm, the rear flank downdraft, sometimes can produce something that we call a you guys an animation if you want. But anyway, gets ingested up into the updraft.

And that circulation can start making its way down toward the surface. Now, when that happens, one of the first things that you'll see is something called a wall cloud, which is just a region of lowering below that whole area, the base of the cloud there by the updraft. And you see lowering, it starts to rotate. Sometimes, again, if conditions are right from there, you can get a funnel cloud to come down a little bit, a little pointed or, you know, chunky looking funnel. And then again, as soon as you see any sign that the circulation has reached the surface you have yourself a tornado you don't have to have a nice cone in order for it to be a tornado and then eventually when that circulation

is not connected between the base of the cloud and the ground anymore your tornado has dissipated so you don't have a tornado anymore all right and then um so i guess that's like how tornadoes are produced we just kind of went over that specific at the clouds. I don't know if you even asked that. I mean, what I would add to that is, you know, obviously the ingredients for a tornado are very similar to ingredients that you would need for thunderstorms in general. Right. So you need moisture and instability, right. Rising air lifting mechanism somehow to get clouds to form, all that. But a key ingredient with supercells is that you need what we call atmospheric shear,

which means you have wind traveling at different speeds and in different directions with height. And that allows the updraft to not only be separate from the downdraft, so it's a longer living storm or longer surviving storm, but that also can get the storm to rotate. Have you learned everything there is to know about tornadoes? And if so, just stop it, right? You don't need to learn anymore. You've learned all this stuff. Yeah. Well, that's the beauty of atmospheric science is that there's always something more to learn about. There's still more stuff that we're not quite sure about. Like, do you think you'd be able to predict tornado?

Are you able to predict tornadoes pretty well? So I will say that the forecasting ability for tornadoes has gone up exponentially since, you know, forecasts were first put out for them. Because of the things in Twister, right? In the movie Twister. Okay. So as much as I hate that movie,

I do have to admit that the instrument in that movie was based on something. Yes. It was based on something that the NSSL, the National Severe Storms Laboratory, they had a whole program devoted to exactly that. It wasn't called Dorothy. It was called Toto. It was called the Totable Tornado Observatory.

Yeah, exactly. I know we talked about it yesterday that the movie isn't accurate. It's not good either, by the way. It's good in that it got a lot of people interested in meteorology, which is great. Had a great cast. Great cast. Oh, my gosh. It's like Helen Hunt and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The VFX definitely do not hold up. Just the car blowing up in the tornado. The guy from The Princess Bride. I just forgot his name. Yeah. Carrie Elwes. Carrie Elwes. And Bill Paxton.

You ever seen a Jim Twister? I've seen it a long time ago. Not good. Carrie Elwes. And Bill Paxton. It's all there. You ever seen it, Jim, Twister? I've seen it a long time ago. Not good. A long time ago. I don't need to see it again. And then when they finally get those things up in the air, they're like, look, the data's coming in.

And they just show you a screen with data. You're like, yeah, it looks like. Okay. It looks like they're merged up. Cool. We're getting the data. Yeah. Yeah.

But that's real. Okay, I got you. How many people die a year in america from tornadoes how many how many do we lose on average yeah 80 in the united states now there are some years where there's a there are some years where there are a lot fewer um but yeah 75 to 80 or so but again the idea behind the research that we do is that if we can predict things better people can get warnings or alerted ahead of time. So I put those watches out saying, OK, conditions are favorable.

So take precautions now. That'd be a terrible way to die. Because I don't know. But again, I only know from movies. Do you would you just get flung somewhere like you'd probably get knocked out pretty quickly or something. I mean, I hate to be kind of morbid about this but it really depends um some people get flung away in which case blunt force trauma by impacting the ground at a high rate of speed um but most people who die from them actually get impacted by debris um and so crush... Could it rip your limbs off?

No. That would be a horrible idea. Could it fly you into the air and then let you down again? Like gently? I suppose it could. If you picked up a surfboard, could you surf one? You know, I don't know the aerodynamics of a surfboard. In 9-11, there was people who surfed from the top floor all the way down.

How good of a surfer are you is the first question. Did they actually survive that? There's some people who were on really high floors. They fell down. Did they survive, though? They did. Yeah, they did. Let me Google 9-11 surfing.

I mean, there have been definitely They did? Yeah, they did. What? Let me Google 9-11 surfing out of... That sounds like some YouTube conspiracy. There have definitely been stories of people who have survived being lofted in such things as a bathtub, right? And then being placed down. They were shaken up, but they did survive from that. Don't know that I would recommend trying a surfboard to get airborne, but... Pasquale Bazzelli survived 9-11

by surfing 15 floors on a slab of concrete. Thank you. You can all go fuck yourself. 15 floors. 15 floors, whatever. 15 floors is a lot, dude. I was thinking the 100, the top. Wait, but was that like in a stairwell?

No, no, no. He was on a bit of concrete, the whole thing. He just stood on it. That's the only way you can do it. Not impressed. In 15 floors, not impressed yet? Not impressed. I drove in the funnel clouds, baby.

He drove a boat towards a fair weather water spout. This guy's insane. Oh, that is hardcore. Well, I'm glad he he survived so you were saying that there is so the the technology is getting to a point where it would be easier to detect like i mean it depends on whether you're talking about like you know visually so you know clearly we have a much better spotter network out there now right people are trained to look for these storms and things like that our technology is also getting better in terms of our radar right so if we're putting up more and more stationary

radars and using more like what you know my group does mobile radars then yes we can see circulations so how far ahead can you see the circulations then well that is a function of how far your radar is from the circulation itself, right? If you have a radar, which basically you can think of it like a flashlight, except it doesn't send out visual light. It sends out microwaves, which you can't see. But anyway, if it can detect something, you know, 15 miles away, it's going to be high above the surface, but you can see when rotation starts, right? You can see the start of rotation. And so a lot of times, I don't know in LA how often you guys get tornado warnings, but a lot of times you will hear, you know, toward a radar indicated tornado or something

like that. That means that there are weather service people in their offices looking at the radar data saying, oh, it looks like there might be a circulation there. That doesn't guarantee that it's on the ground. That's where spotters come in, and that's where damage surveys come in after the storm. We don't have them in L.A. If you had them in L.A., there'd be fucking homeless tents flying around bloody everywhere. Yeah, I don't think L.A.

Because there's no clouds there. There's only clouds there five days a year. Yeah, we've got no clouds. Yeah, so, I mean, I know that they've existed in California. Well, don't jinx it. In California, but it would be, there's just not any five days a year so yeah we got no clouds yeah so i mean i know that they've existed in california but it would be yeah there's just no there's not any of the clouds to form because it's the we get earthquakes everyone's got their thing you don't need to have several things i mean you don't need to it's not up to you it's nature that's where your bloody plant houses you know this is a low tornado slides Mudslides, fires, earthquakes. Yeah, I'm sure you guys have flash flood warnings and mud

slides. Fires, yeah, for sure. A lot of fire alarms. I've stopped watching the news. It makes you depressed having to hear about all the bad things that are coming to get you. Life's about you just wake up and you try to get to the time you go back to sleep. That's all you got to do.

In between that, you try to find ways to lie down. That sounds like depression. So it has to be like a puffy cloud. I don't know what those clouds are called to form tornadoes because that's why we don't have them there. Pillowy. Is that what you said? Serious one. So we call thunderstorm clouds cumulonimbus clouds. It's just that with the supercells, they, you know, the updraft area, you think of it like a vacuum area, that whole area spins.

So it rotates. And then what direction does it go? Jim said clockwise, then he said, no, counterclockwise. He said anti-clockwise. What do you say? Counterclockwise. said anti-clockwise what do you say counter clockwise any anti-clockwise is what the rest of the world says i wasn't saying something stupid anti-clockwise actually yeah in in meteorology we say cyclonic and anti-cyclonic so yeah you are yes thank you you're all right you're all right wait so which way do they spin? Both, actually.

So cyclonic would be counterclockwise here in the Northern Hemisphere. And anti-cyclonic would be clockwise. And most of the tornadoes here in the Northern Hemisphere, most of them spin counterclockwise or cyclonically. However, they can be anti-cyclonic as well. And we have them in Australia oh yes yeah

absolutely tornado in Australia maybe what are they called something else twirly twirlies yeah I was going to say

like I've heard it willy willies and whirly twirlies and stuff like that oh no I was making that up oh well I don't know about

all that but but yeah and then a tornado family I guess Jim was right there, was a whole group of them. Is that what that is? Yeah. So sometimes you can get very large circulations that spawn something called satellite tornadoes around them. And other times you can have individual tornadoes spawn by the same storm. And yes, the latter would be

the tornado families. It's not to be confused with a tornado outbreak, which is where you have a series of storms producing multiple tornadoes, either sequentially or in very close proximity to one another as well. But yeah, you were generally right about that. Is there conventions that you go to with other tornado friends where you all sit around and chat about tornadoes? There's got to be, right? Because there's the people who drive and search for them, right? You'd have a few nut jobs there, wouldn't you? I mean, we have sometimes, yeah. But so our big conference is the American Meteorological Society Annual Conference. But there's also the Se local storms conferences and there are other

conferences across the country too. And then there are amateur meteorologists or amateur storm chaser conferences too that occur. Are there a lot of conspiracy theories around tornadoes? Like how there's chemtrails and stuff like that. Is the government doing it to keep us down? So, no, the government is not doing that to keep us down. But there are lots and lots of conspiracies out there about it. You hear a lot of people saying like HAARP and all that, the chemtrails are influencing the storm frequency, I guess you could say. Yeah, what's HAARP? the storm, you know, uh, frequency, I guess you could say. It has to do with high altitude stuff. Um, which again, is way above the level where we would be looking at, uh, tornadoes anyway. But there are people who also think that the radars themselves are damaging to

people at the surface and can cause tornadoes. And that's not true. It's 5g's fault. If 5g would have something to do with it. Exactly. That's why I don't have a smartphone. I don't want to participate in that. I donG would have something to do with it, surely. That's why I don't have a smartphone. I don't want to participate in that. I don't want to contribute to it. When is tornado season?

Jim said late summer to autumn. Yeah. So I'm going to give an answer that my students hate, and that is it depends on where you're talking about. So in the southern U.S., assuming that we're talking about the U.S. tornado season, the tornado season can start in February, right? All you need is a warm, moist air mass to come up from the Gulf and you need that colder air mass to come down from Canada. And, you know, as long as that cold front can reach further to the south, you can start getting conditions that are favorable for tornadoes. So, you know, February, March is where tornado alley season starts in the south.

And then it gets as you migrate through the season and go from, you know, late spring into summertime, then you start moving up to the great plains or excuse me, the high plains. So quintessential tornado season is in the springtime months. Is, can you in a lab, in the springtime months. Can you, in a lab, in a Perspex box, make a tornado? Can you get all the environment together, put a dog bowl of water in the corner, make it moist and all that type of stuff?

Can you like physically make one? Absolutely, yeah. So as a matter of fact, the person who developed this, the scale on which we rate tornadoes today, today we use something called the Enhanced Fujita Scale, but originally it was created by Dr. Theodore Fujita, and so it was originally called the Fujita Scale. He used to have models all the time, and you can actually, you can create a tornado chamber. You don't even need a lab for it. You can do it with, you it with a bowl of dry ice and some fans and all that stuff. So yeah, you can actually absolutely simulate that kind of stuff. A lot of

science centers have them too, which is kind of cool. Now, they're not on the same scale as what you would experience in the wild, right? I mean, you wouldn't want to have kids sticking their hands into 80 mile an hour winds in the middle of your lab or your science center. But, yeah, you can simulate them pretty well. And the scale, the Fujita, that was the next question. Fujita is the scale? So the original scale, yes, was developed by Dr. Theodore Fujita. And his scale was based on the damage that is left behind by the tornadic winds.

the damage that is left behind by the tornadic winds. In 2007, engineers and meteorologists got together and said, well, that was a great basis, but engineering laws and regulations and, you know, standards have changed. So, they changed it to the enhanced Fujita scale, just to take into consideration all of those changes that had happened between when Dr. Theodore Fujita came up with his scale and the new one. And there's also talks about enhancing it again. Oh, and that's why I don't want to bring up Twister again, but they say F1, F2. Right. So yeah. So that's why the F stands for Fujita. Where was Dr. Fujita from? I believe he was from California.

Oh, okay. I thought it might have been Japanese or something like that. I mean, he was, but I don't know. That's a good question. I should know that. So now it's EF1. What is the number? It's 1, 2, 3, 4, all the way to 10 or something? So the original scale went from F0 to F5.

And the current scale, the modern scale, goes from EF0 to EF5, with EF0 being the weakest and EF5 being the most devastating. Ted Fujita was a Japanese-American meteorologist, born in Japan, died in Chicago. So he was born in Japan, called Theodore. And he goes by Ted, yeah. There you go. Oh, Tetsuya Theodore Fujita.

Yeah, Tetsuya, yeah. That was his American name. And then he just Americanized it. And then the wind. So what's the average wind speed and what's the highest wind speed? Jim said 200 and then 700. Yeah. So 700 is way, way, way above. And 200 is actually way above for average too.

Thankfully, most tornadoes. That's right. I guess y'all do things differently over there or they do things differently. So yeah, most tornadoes, thankfully, are EF0s and EF1s, right? So they have sub 90 mile an hour winds. Now, again, depending on what is in the path of those winds, you can still do damage, right? A mobile home, for example, is not going to withstand, you know, 85, 90 mile an hour winds. They're rated up to like 80 miles an hour or so. That's why a lot of times when you see mobile home parks that have been hit by tornadoes, the damage is so almost complete because, again, they're not meant to withstand that. Now, like I said, thankfully, most of them are weak, EF0, EF1s.

The strongest ones can exceed 300 miles an hour. Yeah, that's a lot of wind coming at your face. How much can they lift? I've seen cars float up and all that type of stuff in footage. Like, how much can they lift? I've seen cars float up and all that type of stuff in footage. Like how much can they lift? Yeah.

I mean, it all depends on aerodynamics of the object as well as does the wind have a path underneath the object to create that, you know, the Bernoulli effect and get that lift to happen. So, for example, as well as the surface area on which that wind is pushing. So, for example, it can push over. Tornado winds have been found to push over things like railroad cars, right? I think there's one or two cases where it could loft them for a little while. Certainly, vehicles have been picked up and flung. So, yeah, it all depends on the physics that's going on, the interplay between the object and the wind. Has it ever gone into a zoo?

And what was the biggest animal that lifted up? That's a great random question. I don't know. A lemur. No. Yeah. Flung a lemur, no problem. That's going to be hard.

There's plenty of animals you could fling with a bit of wind. Yeah, yeah. I was going to say, like, lemurs are kind of small. I'm saying, yeah, no problem. Lemurs. I guarantee you a lemur yeah um and then how large are they across an average and what's the largest one across ever yeah so on average they're anywhere from like 300 to 500 meters across um they're usually 10 minutes or less in terms of how long they're on the ground for the widest documented tornado was in 2013 um in el reno oklahoma and we documented that the extent of it as being 2.6 miles wide

um and that yeah and the thing is that was also a perfect it was horrible but it was a perfect example of a multi-vortex tornado. So, it had a giant circulation, obviously. And then around the periphery of that circulation were these occasional little spindly little suction vortices that each, you know, had winds approaching 200 miles an hour. So, it was, yeah, that was a nightmare case. And unfortunately, we lost pioneers in the field of atmospheric science observation there. We lost Tim Samaras and his chase crew. And that was horrifying.

Do you see a future where we will have some technology that we can implement that can stop or slow down a tornado? Or do we have that already? No. Is anyone working on that? No. For one thing, the likelihood that any one location is going to get hit by a tornado is very, very hard to predict, right?

It's almost infinitesimally small. Like a fan that goes backwards that you put at the base of it. I mean, if you have a fan that could blow, you know, 200 miles an hour. I'm just the ideas, man. I'm just the ideas. That's true. That's true.

You're the scientist. You're supposed to figure it out. Was that in the Paw Patrol movie? It was, yeah. They have a backwards fan? You saw the movie? I saw the Paw Patrol movie. Yes, I do.

They have a backwards fan in the Paw Patrol movie? Wait, they stopped a tornado? Yeah, they stopped bad weather, but then it blows up because a bad guy did it, and then the tornado's going to unleash. Oh, no. It was a bad scene. It was a bad scene. What about if we tried salt?

Just throwing a bit of salt in there, and that might thin it out. Well, then you'd just be flinging salt. You'd be flinging salt at like 200 miles an hour. This is how experiments work for us. You start with salt. That's true. I don't want to. And then you use diet.

Scientific methods. Have you tried damaging its confidence? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Talking down to the tornado. Einstein tried like. Edison had like 300 different things before he found how to make the light bulb. Oh, yeah.

I got it. It's true. Do you ever try shooting it with a gun? I know you do. When there's a tornado, you get a two liter bottle of Diet Coke and you put some Mentos in it. In the middle of the tornado. And then it stops. That's right.

Well, that's worth trying. Toast? Oh, what about Sharknado? Toast. Avocado toast. Have you tried it? I have. I've thrown some in a water spout. Sharknato's. Offer it up. Could a tornado lift a shark?

And how long would the shark live in the Shark Nato? And did Shark Nato, did you enjoy the first movie? I found the second and third one got silly. It's one of my favorite franchises for that genre of movie, actually. It really is. At a certain point at a certain point it knows that it's making fun of itself so i'm just like yeah all right go ahead take that shark down with a chainsaw as you're flying through it's when all the sharks

came up through the toilet and flooded the house well there was one there was one where there was an airplane flying and the sharks got thrown into the airplane. You're the marine biologist. How long could a shark survive? They could survive a long time out of the water. A lot longer than you think. Sounds dangerous for us. I will say, now I am not a shark biologist or marine biologist.

I will say, though, that there's a very big difference between being out of the water on land and being out of the water hundreds of feet up. Because I think that the sharks would recognize that something is wrong with them being that high up. I would like to think so. And so they would probably die of, you know, fright or shock or something like that. But then they'd be excited to see the guy from 90210. Can't remember his name, but he's in there. That's true. Oh my God, it's him.

I can't remember his name, but he's in there. That's true. Like, oh my God, it's him. Dean Ziering. Dean Ziering. To answer your question though, yes, there actually have been documented cases of fish, well, sharks are fish,

but of fish being sucked up by those fair weather water spouts and dropped elsewhere. So theoretically, yeah, I suppose, not a whale shark. No one wants to watch a movie called Troutnado. That's right. No, no, no. That's right. That's right.

When after hurricanes, I would, me and my friends, we had a couple of businesses. One is we would just go around. Selling drugs. With chainsaws. And we'd remove like trees that have fallen on people's houses and things like that. And we'd clean up their yard. And I also would get like a pump that I could pump up because people's pools would be disgusting. They'd be filled with like debris and all sorts of a lot of dead animals and things like that.

And there was one time I was pumping out a pool and we were about a mile from the ocean. There was a shark in it. It was dead. Yeah. But it was flying through the air at some point and went to this pool. So, wow. Oh, it's Florida. Some redneck trying to raise a shark in a fucking pool.

I was going to say, yeah. Are you sure it wasn't a tornado? And then a tornado came through. He's like, this must have flown up from them tornado. Yeah. There's some people who think fish can get evaporated in the clouds and come raining down, but that can't be right. No one thinks that.

No one thinks that. Who thinks that fish gets sucked up by clouds and evaporate and come back down. No, I'm not listening. I have fought people on this. I have fought people. I'm like, there's no fucking way, right? They're making fun of you, Jack. Five people?

You fought them. Here's the thing. I know of no cases of that. However, there have been stories of frogs and toads there have been stories of frogs and toads that have been encased in hail. And what that means is that there was enough

force to bring them up into the updraft. I mean, not like gigantic, but, yeah, I mean, anything that gets sucked up into the updraft there, if it's a strong enough updraft, it'll keep it up and you can get layers and layers of ice.

That's updraft. That's not evaporation. That's not evaporation. When I come in the toilet and it goes out to the ocean and then it gets updrafted up, it comes back as thunder. What are you doing in the toilet? Sometimes you jack off into a toilet bowl. No.

You've never done that? You've never done that just so there won't be a mess and you're already in the bathroom? Isn't that called cloud seeding? So what, you would miss the bowl? Where else would you do it in the bathroom? That's how cumulus clouds are created. See, there you go. Cumulus nimbus. You've never jacked off

into a toilet your whole life. I told you no three times. I don't know how many more times. How about now? Still no. Jack, have you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. Kelly? No. You've never flicked one off while sitting on the toilet? No, my legs would go down. You've never

had a toilet and poo that's going a bit long and you go, I'll break this up. Alright, I haven't done that. No. Multitasking is important. It's an important skill. I've never been horny taking a shit. I'll say that. So how long do tornadoes last and how far do they travel? Like they spent like even that,

the largest one that you said across was two and a half miles. Like how on average, how long do they last and how far do they travel? And what's like the record? Come thunder. Um, yeah. So on average, they last about 10 minutes um the longest one so the one that i

mentioned uh the two and a half or 2.6 mile wide one was on the ground for you know about 40 minutes or so um but the the longest one the the tri-state tornado of 19, that was on the ground for over 200 miles. That was on the ground for like 218, 219 miles or so. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's, yeah. And it also had a pretty, it had a pretty fast forward motion too. But yeah.

So they can last a long time. I'll tell you a little thing about me that since moving to America that I enjoy doing. I love saying the tri-state area. I'm never in the tri-state area, but I always say to my wife, because my wife doesn't know what it means, right? She's still British and she never asked. I go, I'll be in California. I'll go, she goes, did you find that blah, blah, blah at the shops?

And I went, I drove across the tri-state area. And there's none available. She's like, wow, that sounds. There's none available in the tri-state area. And there's none available. She's like, wow, that sounds. There's none available in the tri-state area. She doesn't know what the tri-state area is. Do you know what it is? Yeah, it's like New York and Jersey and something else, Rhode Island or something.

One of those ones. And it's like. It's got to get three states together. Yeah. Pretty much. You should throw a quad state area in there sometimes isn't there one where you can stand in like five states at once or something it's like Nevada Utah

New Mexico oh the four corners region New Mexico Arizona yeah and Breaking Bad she goes to it remember she's like puts the baby on the thing I have pictures of me as a three year old there we'll put them up here there it is good picture baby on the thing. I have pictures of me as a three-year-old there. We'll put them up here.

There it is. Good picture. This tri-state tornado was actually Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, I think. So it wasn't the tri-state tornado, but it did cross three states. Now, weather stuff, like weather preparation,

is that a federal thing or is that a state thing? And do some states do it better than others if it's a state thing? And am I paying taxes in California for these people in Kansas to have tornadoes all the time? What? You mean to like help them prepare for tornadoes? Yeah. Yeah.

So, I mean, FEMA is a thing. So that is federal, right? They help a lot with like the after effects and things like that. Nationwide, we have the National Weather Service. And so, yes, that is taxpayer funded and the government puts money into it and everything like that. And yeah, they are responsible for issuing watches and warnings. So the Storm Prediction Center will issue the watches and the National Weather Service will issue the warnings. And so, yes, we're all kind of contributing to one big pot of funding for the National Weather Service in order to do that. Now, what's interesting is that in terms of the emergency management side, every community,

every county in this country, and there are many, many counties, they all have different thresholds of preparedness, right? So, I don't know what you guys have there in LA or in your county. I don't know if you have storm sirens. I don't know what your storm sirens. Unfortunately, every single county can determine what the sirens mean when they go off, right? So, do they go off for 70 mile an hour winds? Do they go off for tornadoes? Do they go off for severe thunderstorm, you know, hail or whatever? And that, in that way, it can be very, very confusing. There is no across theboard legislation or requirement that places have basements or sirens or anything like that. It's really up to the individual. Well, that's interesting, right, because I'll ask all the people here. Now, if you're walking along the street and you're in LA and you hear the siren go, wee!

No, it's not a car one. You know the car ones. It's a big, like, wee! Wee! Like that. What do you think's happening when you hear that sound a test yeah normally it's not a test but what do you think it's a test for like what do you think it's protected i would think wind or lightning i would think it's for fucking nuclear bombs yeah i would think it was like nuclear yeah because here because they had that happen in hawaii they let it off by accident.

You know what I mean? Like, I wouldn't go, ooh, tornadoes are coming. Yeah, because I don't think it'd only be in the areas where tornadoes are prevalent because we get hurricanes in Florida. There's no hurricane siren because, you know, for a week it's coming. So you're not like, oh, my God, it's a problem. And here earthquakes just happens. You wouldn't have an earthquake siren.

We're supposed to have an app that lets us know, but I don't think that. I think you're right, Jim. I think it'd be like some sort of bomb thing. We're under threat here. I would think we were under attack for sure. That's what we tell the students here is if you hear a siren, the first thing

that you should do is, yes, you should find shelter, but then figure out what's going on. Look for more information as to what's causing it. But also, knowing ahead of time what your sirens mean, that goes a long way. So I would look that up if I were you guys. Well, they've got that one, the emergency one, because I had one in the radio just then and it was just a test.

And it's like the one that just sounds like a fax machine. We're just testing and you're like who picked this sound who picked this sound testing all the sounds just don't fucking hell and mirror and give us a voiceover we're all in trouble yeah it's like the amber alert thing on the iphone like i've been woken up in the middle of the night and it's terrifying it's just like yeah just tell us and that's and that is nationwide So that's the emergency alert system. So even my dumb phone gets those alerts too because they want people to be informed.

And what you'll often see at the end of those messages is seek more information. I'll tell you which one I don't pay. The silver alert. I'm like, whatever. What's the silver alert? It's like old people. They'll find their way back.

I turned off all the emergency alerts. You can do that? I don't want to know what's happening. So what parts of the world did tornadoes occur? Jim said only middle America. He's never heard one outside of North America. And Tornado Alley is in Kansas. Yeah, so the only continent that hasn't experienced them before is Antarctica.

So they have occurred everywhere else on the planet. So in terms of sheer numbers, the U.S. has the number one. We're number one for that. Canada is number two. And then, you know, it goes down from there. Three, four. See, that's how it works. Yeah, yeah.

In terms of deadly, like the deadliest, you know, the places with the highest fatalities on a yearly basis, that's Bangladesh. Right. So, yeah. Well, I don't imagine they have great housing in Bangladesh. And their population density is very high. I've never been there.

I might come off as a bit wrong there, but I don't see their houses uh the lasting tornado it's a poorer country but i mean to to that point a lot of the i'm i'm assuming a lot of the deaths happen in america in trailer parks which is generally poorer population too because those aren't made those those not there's no walls basically it's like a thin bit yeah yeah so yeah socioeconomics plays a huge role in terms of who survives these things and tornado alley is in kansas so tornado alley extends from a region that is along the gulf coast so texas louisiana um all the way up through portions of

the dakotas and even into minnesota, that kind of migrates throughout the year. So Minnesota and the high plains in general tend to be later on in the, you know, late spring, early summer. So basically Tornado Alley is very close to the Bible Belt, right? There's all these religious people in the middle of America. They're going, oh, Jesus, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then their fucking nature goes and fucking gets rid of their fucking houses. Where's your God now, you dumbasses?

They probably, seriously, from that. So a lot of my research was actually in those areas. And I swear to you, what they say is, well, it's just a test. We have to overcome it. And I'm like, all right, if that reinforces. Exactly. And I'm like, if that reinforces... And then people donate money to help them build.

Oh, that's God's will. Nah, we fucking did it. God didn't help you out. I think you can get some cheap houses in Tornado Alley. Yeah, sure. You don't want to live there. It's Tornado Alley. We talked about them being detected. Oh, the center of a tornado is calm. Eye of the storm. Nothing's happening.

Is that the thing? Because I know in Hurricane, it isn't a tornado is calm i have the storm nothing's happening is that the thing because i don't hurricane that isn't a tornado so the thing they have to remember about tornadoes is that they are much smaller than hurricanes i know that's an obvious statement so relative calm is you know it's really quick it's like fleeting it's like it's super you know um if you look at a radar signature of a very, very strong tornado, you can actually see an area that is clear. There's no reflectivity in there because things are being centrifuged away from the center. And so if you were in a tornado, and there have been a couple of stories of people who have been in tornado. I've been in the center of a circulation of a forming tornado, and it was just like, oh God, I gotta get the frick out of here. But yeah, I mean, it's theoretically calm, but it's moving very fast.

Like the entire tornado is moving fast. And around that center, you can have really strong winds. So I don't know how you would really determine that it's calm in the center of the tornado. Unlike a hurricane where the eye tends to be relatively calm, but it also tends to be many, many times wider than even the widest tornado. Yeah, I have a mate who said he was in the Navy, and he said he went through a hurricane, and then when the eye was passing over the ship, all the birds just landed on the deck of the ship because they were sick

of flying over the ocean in the side of the eye, and they didn't give a fuck about human touch or anything because they were sick of flying over the ocean in the side of the eye and they didn't give a fuck about human touch or anything because they were exhausted. That's the word, but you know, I mean, you know more about her, but when the eye travels over too, when the other wall hits, that's the strongest wall and it's going the opposite direction, right? So then all the wind just like pushes everything backwards. So it's like. So it's not necessarily that it's the strongest. It's that for the first half of the storm prior to,

you know, the eye impacting it, all the winds have been going constantly in one way and weakening the structures or trees or whatever poles. And then you have the same amount of wind, but going the other way. And so it's already been weakened. It's not necessarily stronger on the backside of of a um an eye wall but yeah what you're saying about the

birds is absolutely true in the deployments that i've been in um the one that sticks out in my mind the most is one where we got out of our vehicle during the eye and we saw yeah we saw pelicans just flying with the eye and a lot, unfortunately, were dropping out of the sky because they are so exhausted. And, yeah. Is there any benefits? Like, is there anything like, you know, when you like, you eat something, it doesn't taste good,

but it chips away at your colon and clears things out. Is there something that it like sifts shit out of the air or something? Population control. Is there any, is there any, is there something that it like sifts shit out of the air or something? Population control. Is there any uptick like some of these smaller towns get a new mall afterwards, you know, apart from that, but I mean, is there any uptick? So here's the thing. If we think about thunderstorms in general, right, so whether they are hurricane-sized thunderstorms

or storms that produce tornadoes. It's nature's way of balancing out imbalances in moisture and heat, right? And so you can think of thunderstorms as like nature's air conditioner, right? You've noticed that if you stand in front of a thunderstorm that's coming toward you, one of the first things that you feel is that rush of cold air, right? And so, again, it's a way of balancing out thermal differences and moisture differences in our atmosphere. There have been a couple of communities that have been pretty much wiped off the face of where they were that have decided, for example, was an F5, a very strong tornado, they made the conscious choice afterwards to rebuild as a green community. So they did a lot of recycled stuff. They did a

lot of, you know, solar, they did a lot of things like that. And so in that respect, yes, that was a positive benefit from that, but that certainly wasn't immediate. So if we can make them inside Perspex boxes and we can get all this stuff together, how far are we from making tornadoes and sending them to China and Russia? Like if this is sensitive information that you don't want to disclose, that's fine. I don't know. What's your security clearance? No, I'm just kidding. That's fine.

Yeah, I don't know. What's your security clearance? No, I'm just kidding. I mean, the sheer amount of energy that a tornado could produce is something that we can't harness. I hear you. We're close. I like that you're trying to answer this, Rachel. You're a good sport.

You've seen this in movies my whole life. We send thunderstorms to different countries and stuff like that. We can make things in labs. Why? You're small-minded, man. This could happen. What sounds do tornadoes make? Oh, wishy-wally-wittle-wah. Shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo, shoo. Clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk, clunk.

Yeah, why'd you write barley, barley, barley? Because he said barley. Because barley's flying up and it's been grown in the area and it grows up. I'm a good note taker. I write down what the guy says. Barley, barley, barley. I write mouth noises more than anything on my outlines.

Is that like something you teach? Like how to make tornado sounds, Rachel? Can you do them? No. No. I mean. Come on. Give us some.

So, Charny, you have a nuclear weapon? Give us some tornado sounds. Tornado. Hey, Putin. Put this tornado with it. We're putting this in your ass, Putin. Here's a tornado. So, I don't know who just made the sound. Who was that?

That was me. Okay, that was you. That was my asshole trying to push out a fart. Wow, it's mic'd up. I was gonna say well anyway but yeah no I mean

so from my perspective when I've been near tornadoes that is what they have sounded like to me their sound right

but other people have described them as freight trains and waterfalls I have heard maybe children children

we're just providing sound effects we're scoring the podcast Kelly let us do this hey Afghanistan don't you get any ideas tornado he's doing his own thing I think the payback for that would be horrendous they won't know

it's the whole beauty of the tornado war they can never what you're going to attack us with because you had a fucking tornado. Wait, so, okay. Question. I can't believe I'm,

I don't know. It's so hard to understand. We make the tornadoes here. We send them to countries. We're not getting along with. All right. What's your question? But are you talking about like sending over a single one at a time?

Or are you like this whole barrage of like tornadoes? Because again, there's a lot of real estate to cover. I'm not a scientist, right? If you wanted to do complete war, you'd send several tornadoes at once. Like who will rip the place to shit? Like ambush. Or like a SWAT team,

you can send in a single small tornado to just wipe out Putin. How do you get them there? Well, you put them in a box. You wrap it with wrapping paper. They think it's a birthday present. They open it up. It's a Putin. How do you get them there? Well, you put them in a box. You wrap it with wrapping paper. They think it's a birthday present. They open it up. It's a tornado.

What do they understand, Jake? You have to understand, in Jim's plan, the tornado's in a little box. A little tornado. Yes. And you place the box and it opens

and a tornado shoots up. Nothing like that, Jake. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. It's a fake birthday present. They open it. Tornado. It drops from a plane. Like a Trojan horse with a tornado? Yes. It's a fake birthday present. They open it. Tornado. It drops from a plane.

Like a Trojan horse with a tornado? Yes. It's a regular tornado. It's from one tornado. A regular tornado that comes from a plane. No, you just drop the little seed that starts the tornado. The experiment starts a small. Yeah, we'll have a box, Jack.

You're right. A box will drop down. I'm an elite engineer. But the problem is you can't have the box that says tornado on it because then the tornadoes. No, you put like fast food on it. You put not a tornado on the outside.

What was it? The twisties? The cheese twisties? Oh, the twisties. We'll send you some snacks. We'll pull washing machine. Great. That's a good one. When you're outside and you see like the leaves spin in a circle, is that a tornado? So that is a vortex.

That's not a tornado, Jack. It's not a tornado though. Because again, remember, in order for it to be a tornado, there has to be a connection between the circulation at the ground and the circulation in the clouds. Right. Okay. Here's an important question. It's our last one one here how do you stay safe during a tornado what

can you do to prepare um there's nothing that can save you putin these tornadoes are coming no but seriously for people that are listening like you know kelly's cousin was in one day if there's a tornado what what should he have gotten out of the car what should you do yeah so the first thing is be aware of the car what should you do yeah so the first thing is be aware of the conditions before they deteriorate right so again i know kelly you said that you have your warnings disabled and stuff like that um i'm gonna ask that you don't do that oh i'm not that committed she also has disabled warnings where she gets warned when they're coming to borrow she She's very bigoted.

So for example, when you hear a weather warning come across your wire, right, it could be a heat, excuse me, a watch. It could be a heat watch. It could be a, you know, flood watch. It could be hurricane watch or whatever. That means that conditions are favorable, right? The ingredients are getting in place, right? I always use cupcake watch versus cupcake warning, right? You have the ingredients in place, right? I always use cupcake watch versus cupcake warning, right? You have the ingredients of a cupcake. That means, okay, prepare. There

could be cupcakes in your future. By the time the warning is issued, though, that means that that is happening. So, the more you can prepare ahead of time, know your evacuation routes. If you have a closet, clean out your closet so that if you have a tornado warning, you can get into that closet, clean out your basement. If you have a basement and you know, get, you know, make sure that you have ways to get you basically when it comes to surviving tornadoes, your number one priority is putting as many layers between you and the debris that's being blown around by the wind outside. And how do you prepare for a cupcake? Like you said, you got the ingredients, cupcakes in your future. Now it's time to prepare.

Flour, frosting. So if a cupcake actually comes your way, have you done the prep work? And what is the prep work for a cupcake? Getting all of the ingredients together. No, but the ingredients for a cyclone, the world puts the tornado together. You have to prepare ingredients for a cyclone, the world puts the cyclone, the tornado together. You have to prepare for when

the tornado comes. They can tell you the ingredients. When the ingredients of a cupcake's there, you're not baking the cupcake. You're just getting the cupcake. What do you have to prepare for? And you're preparing for how to deal with it. You're making it. So when you get the cupcake, how do I deal with this? I don't deserve a cupcake. You put your

bib in. You're taking your omeprazole so you don't get heartburn. What exactly? You do that stupid thing where you cut it in half because you only want half of one and then you eat the other half a little bit later. What if you're in a car though? Should you stay in the car? Oh gosh. So that, yeah, that's a big question.

So remember, once your car gets airborne, if it gets airborne or if it tips over, you have no control over that car. Well, you can't steer it back in the sky. No, this is not like Harry Potter. What if you rock back and forth inside really hard? Yeah, what if you bump your bum up and down? It could put you to sleep, I suppose, if it's... No, right?

You don't want to be anywhere near that. What if you recline all the seats? I mean, I suppose that would make it a little no don't do that don't do that um what if you what if you turn the radio up loud so the subwoofer made it go no you don't want to do that because that puts more air underneath your car that could make it more airborne that'd be bad that'd be really bad um what you definitely don't want to do is you, you, you never want to take cover under an overpass. I know that a lot of people are tempted to do that because they think, Oh,

hail wind. I'm going to be safe under there. No, that acts or can act like a vacuum at that point or a wind tunnel. You can get sucked out. You can get bombarded with debris. Never, ever,

ever stay under an overpass in, in that situation. Please, please, please don't do that. debris, never, ever, ever stay under an overpass in that situation. Please, please, please don't do that. The best thing to do if you are in a vehicle would be to drive at a 90 degree angle. You don't have to have a protractor. It just means, you know, turn away from the tornado as best you can. If you do not have the opportunity to do that, get out and get into a ditch. Ditch. Oh, a ditch. That's what I was going to ask you, if you're in a field. So you look for a ditch if you're in a field.

Yep. And cover your head and neck. If you're on an inflatable bouncy castle, you would stay on that, right? Because that would be a safe place to stay. I mean, that's a fun ride, right? If you're in a bouncy castle. Super safe.

They're totally magical. They're meant to withstand. It's like the beginning of a 911 episode. I know people who died from that, man. Not even during the windy days. They didn't bloody put the pegs in. Yeah. Sorry, my phone is ringing.

Is it the 1980s calling? Like, that's an old push button phone. I was saying that, yeah, this is how we do it. You unplugged the bloody thing there. I did. You've got all the tornado technology and you've got a push button phone. She told us she doesn't have a smartphone. I don't. Why don't you have a smartphone?

What are you Andy's smartphone for? Because I, number one, I can still get alerts on my dumb phone. If I couldn't, then I would upgrade. I like to be able to disconnect from online stuff. I agree. It's a nice thing to do. I have like full weekends where I don't look at social media or anything for like days on end or anything like that.

But you are missing some wonderful Tornado Instagram pictures. They must be something. Well, I mean, I have a computer. I can look at things on like Twitter like I have a Twitter account I just don't need it in my pocket all the time you know what I mean that sounds nice alright now is the time of our show called

dinner party facts we ask our guests to give us a fact something obscure interesting that audience can use to impress people about the subject what do you got for us yeah so I think I've given you a lot of my facts, but I will give you some like I will give you a fun word to use.

Yeah, and that is lilapsophobia. Yeah. I can't do it. Lilapsophobia. Lilapsophobia. Archaeopteryx. That's one of the great

dinosaurs. But lilapsophobia is the Archaeopteryx That's one of the great dinosaurs But lilapsophobia is The Extreme fear of Tornadoes and hurricanes Who doesn't have that? Storm chasers? I mean you for it

Lilapsophiles don't But I found out A funnel cloud is not a tornado I don't have a fear of a funnel cloud, but no, no, no. You're afraid of a water spout.

Yeah. Water spots. Sorry. Uh, like laps of phobia. There you go. And then astrophobia is just the fear of thunder and lightning. So there you go.

Well, the thunder and the lightning. There you go. Exactly. Well, if you're ever in the same cloud area and you want to go to a planetarium show, go to the link that we provided you there. You can do that. And then you can meet Rachel there, perhaps.

I'm not guaranteeing that. And then if you want to follow on Twitter, go to at Go Ask a Scientist or at SCSU Planetarium for the planetarium information. Rachel, thank you for being here. Thank you all so, so much. You ask great questions. Ah, you get out of here.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you ever had a party and someone comes up to you and goes, I have lilacophobia. Go, I don't know about that. That's the fear of the color line. Fear of smelling.

Or the flower. Yeah, the bath bomb. You know how to show it.