Oklahomahas been ravaged by a massive , mile - all-inclusive crack cocaine , with more predicted to add up . We talked about the megastorms with atmospheric scientist Karen Kosiba , whose work is showcased in documentaryTornado Alley .
Kosiba is a researcher at the Center for Severe Weather Research in Colorado , where she analyze earth - level conditions during tornadoes . She has also spend the past several yearsworking with VORTEX2 , a team of scientist who follow these virulent wind tempest in trucks fitted out with detector and radar , gathering reams of datum on how tornado start , and how you’re able to expect them to behave once they do .
She ’s been on the TV series Storm Chasers , and in Tornado Alley we see her in the statement heart of one of the wandering storm chasing labs – a truck that bear its own Doppler radiolocation setup .
io9 : You ’ve been follow crack cocaine for years now . Is there something different or unusual occurrent this year that ’s get so many tornado at once ?
KK : Not really – these things fluctuate year to year . It ’s not part of a pattern . you could encounter other old age that this has befall – there ’s a peculiarly strong system out of the Pacific , and we ’re set out good moisture up there . It just kind of happens . These are fast - moving systems so our enquiry team is n’t trying to get in front of them and analyze them . Once they get into southeastern United States , there are lots of tree and scratchy terrain that blocks our radar observations . But part of what we ’re essay to watch is how to predict these kind of tempest better .
Is there any path to predict which storms will sprain into tornadoes ?
We know that supercell storms are big producers of these crack cocaine , but we ca n’t predict whether a especial tempest will make a tornado .
That ’s the big objective of VORTEX2 – a lot of it is receive data from the field . We ’re endeavor to figure out these details as well as how to relay it to the atmospheric condition service and the public . Just because we learn stuff does n’t mean it can translate into respectable atmospheric condition prediction . People may not have the observational tech required to valuate whether a storm will create a crack cocaine . Most shoes have radiolocation , which measures 30 m up into the tune and higher . But what if it turn out that [ for exact predictions ] you postulate low level observation , or soundings closer to the storm , or temperature and wind speed ? You need other equipment to get those measure .
We want to know what farting are doing at the basis horizontal surface , because that ’s where it affects the great unwashed the most . We ’re trying to correlate radar recitation with ground level wind speed . So maybe our information , at some point , would take into account people to use radiolocation observation to predict what the winds at the ground will be like .
What ’s the most interesting thing you ’ve disclose about crack cocaine since you start observing them ?
We have data on almost 200 tornado – a lot of them are n’t alike . They have very different whirlpool and structures – you may be surprised by a dataset . you could see a destiny of new structures – that ’s the cool thing .
If you ’ll leave me to have a scifi moment let ’s talk about something far future : Tornado prevention . What if you were the storm stoppers instead of the storm chaser ? We know hot air and moisure are demand to make tornadoes . What would we need to keep them ? guess you had futuristic technology – whatever you necessitate . How would you stop a twister before it starts ?
Well . . . [ laughs ] . You would n’t require your electric storm to rotate . You might require to shift the wind direction somehow , though you might get in trouble by creating something entirely unlike . fundamentally the mesocyclone [ the eminent - story rotating violent storm that finally touches down as a tornado ] is what you want to stop . So you ’d desire something airborne that could switch the wind directions as the weather condition pattern occur through . possibly something that would debar the wind , prevent the rotary motion . You would n’t want to change the rainfall or anything like that – you need the pelting . I ’m not sure what this airborne gimmick would front like , but that ’s what you ’d want to do .
This io9 flashback originally appear in 2011 .
earth scienceScienceTornadoes
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