Original subtitles

CHARLIE: Hey guys Charlie here today we're hanging out in Colorado

somewhere near Boulder!

And we're here hanging out with our friends from the Center

for Severe Weather Research.

I think they're here right now. Oh man.

KIRBY: Come on Charles!

CHARLIE: We gotta go guys! KIRBY: Hop in!

CHARLIE: Nothing like hanging out with some storm chasers

to start your day!

KIRBY: We're hoping for a giant storm!

Let's go chase it down.

CHARLIE: I don't know Kirb, Moonbows are pretty cool.

KIRBY: Trust me, this will gonna be bumpin'.

CHARLIE: What's up guys! KIRBY: Hey!

CHARLIE: I'm Charlie. KIRBY: I'm Kirby.

CHARLIE: We're so excited that you're here, alright, check it out.

The most frustrating thing just happened.

KIRBY: The worst.

CHARLIE: Just like ten minutes ago we were outside in front

getting ready to go to the beach.

We had everything we needed.

We were ready to go.

KIRBY: Umbrella? CHARLIE: Check. Sunscreen?

KIRBY: Check. Goggles?

CHARLIE: Check! Ready to roll.

KIRBY: It's raining!

CHARLIE: No!

(sirens)

KIRBY: Is that a tornado warning?

CHARLIE: No!

KIRBY: We gotta get inside quick until this thing passes, come on.

CHARLIE: It's storming outside!

KIRBY: And nado-ing!

CHARLIE: Tornado sirens!

KIRBY: I just wanna go to the beach.

CHARLIE: That's definitely not happening.

KIRBY: I know.

CHARLIE: So, we just got robbed of a beach day.

And we wanna make sure that, that never happens again!

KIRBY: Never.

CHARLIE: So today, we're checking out weather but

not just any weather, the extreme weather.

KIRBY: The big weather.

CHARLIE: The beach day breaking, plan canceling, no outside playing,

big bad, nasty weather!

Today, we're unraveling the world of...

KIRBY: Tornadoes and Hurricanes!

CHARLIE: Okay, so for the past couple minutes Kirby and I have put some effort

into checking out some weather stuff.

KIRBY: The neatest weather stuff.

CHARLIE: And there's some pretty neat weather stuff out there.

Like moonbows.

Rainbows that show up at night when the moon's almost full.

And thundersnow.

That's a blizzard with tons of thunder and lightning.

There are crazy hail storms, sand storms,

and mammatus clouds that look like colorful fluffy egg cartons in the sky.

But what gets us really excited...

KIRBY: Tornadoes and hurricanes.

CHARLIE: Crazy strong storm events that are basically the closest thing we have to

mother nature sucker punching earth right in the jaw.

KIRBY: Hurricanes and tornadoes are incredibly powerful storm events.

They're like someone took a normal storm, cranked the wind speed up to 11,

and forced the whole thing into a giant torpedo of destruction.

But for real, these things are really nothing to mess around

with because they can be super dangerous.

So, safety is the number one thing when you're in an area that is experiencing

a hurricane or a tornado.

CHARLIE: So, instead of freaking out about the fact that there's a tornado warning

going on outside, Kirby and I decided to cope by doing what we do best.

KIRBY: A little research and crafting.

CHARLIE: First up, tornadoes.

Tornadoes don't just happen during any storm.

They happen during supercell thunderstorms.

Cool science word, Supercell Thunderstorms, they're really intense thunderstorms that

have swirling columns of air in the middle that kind of look like this...

That swirling wind area is called the mesocyclone.

When there's really low air pressure, the mesocyclone starts making its way to the

ground, mixing with cold and hot air.

When the swirling wind mass touches the ground.

That's when we've got a tornado on our hands.

KIRBY: And that's also when we have a tornado warning on our hands.

CHARLIE: This is how it works.

First there's a siren.

(siren)

Then, on TV something like this usually shows up.

If there's a tornado watch, that means the weather people think there's a chance that

mesocyclone might be touching down sometime soon.

If there's a tornado warning, that means the mesocyclone has touched down,

there's a tornado somewhere and there could be more.

So, a tornado watch is like a big maybe, but a tornado warning is like a heads-up

man, a tornado's been spotted so get to your basement and be safe!

Cool cool? Cool cool.

KIRBY: Guys, guys, this is great!

But can we please talk about the fact that there are

a bunch of different kinds of tornadoes?

So weird!

Check it out!

So first you have your standard tornado.

Basic shape, swirling wind, single cone, etcetera.

Then you have your land spout.

Kind of like a junior tornado that forms from the ground up.

Waterspout tornadoes form over bodies of water.

Multiple vortex tornadoes have more than one touchdown point.

And my personal favorite, a family of tornadoes.

Like a herd of tornadoes thundering across an area, all coming from the same cloud.

CHARLIE: So those are tornadoes.

KIRBY: Tornadoes.

CHARLIE: Tornadoes, we got 'em down.

Hurricane time?

KIRBY: Hurricane time. CHARLIE: Let's dive in.

Hurricanes always start as storms in the middle of the ocean.

When the temperature gets warm enough, winds start pushing the air up and out.

The air keeps rising because it's so warm and humid, forming this enormous donut

shaped storm, that slowly makes its way toward land.

Here's the thing about hurricanes, they're massively bigger than tornadoes

like 1,000 times bigger.

One hurricane can cover the entire east coast for the United States while tornadoes

usually move through just one town at a time.

If the wind of one of these storms reaches 38 miles per hour,

weather people call it a tropical depression.

If those winds boost up to 39 miles per hour, it's now a tropical storm and

we give it a name like Jeremy, or Jillian, or Julian, or anything else.

Once Julian hits 74 miles per hour, now he's graduated to hurricane status.

Congrats Julian.

We're so proud of you. You big old hurricane.

KIRBY: So, we got the basics down.

CHARLIE: Yeah, but we want to know how to predict these bad boys.

Like we know that tornadoes come from supercell thunderstorms and hurricanes

come from warm, humid air over the ocean.

But that's not really enough.

To really understand these things, we need to become...

Weather men!

KIRBY: And weather women!

CHARLIE: Weather people!

Stick around for a news weather update from E.W.N.!

KIRBY: The Extreme Weather Network.

CHARLIE: 80% chance of fun weather facts heading your way so stick around.

KIRBY: That was really bad.

CHARLIE: Not my best line.

KIRBY: Weird but true, waterspouts can lift sea creatures out of the water

causing them to rain down from the sky!

CHARLIE: Today we're checking out extreme weather.

KIRBY: Tornadoes and Hurricanes.

CHARLIE: Tornadoes and hurricanes.

We kind of squared away what they are, we wanna learn how to predict them.

We need to become.

KIRBY: Weather people! CHARLIE: Weather people!

But we found out that if weather's your thing, there are a whole bunch of different

jobs you can do to study it.

More than just your television weatherman slash lady.

Wanna check em out?

KIRBY: I'm game. CHARLIE: Awesome!

First, we'll start out with your television man slash woman.

The people you see on the TV, on the news, are usually meteorologists.

They study short term weather, like day to day weather that might last

from a few days to a few weeks.

They use complex computer models to predict patterns, and give us the weather for

the week or the night.

Usually presenting it in front of a green screen.

KIRBY: I'm meteorologist Kirby with the Extreme Weather Network.

CHARLIE: So that's a meteorologist, but I know that being in front of

the camera is not for everyone.

So, for those really smart science people who get jacked up about global weather,

maybe climatology is your thing.

You might wanna become a climatologist like Greg over here.

KIRBY: Hey.

CHARLIE: Climatologist study climate.

And you might be thinking, weather?

Climate? What's the difference?

Well, climate is basically just weather averaged over a long period of time.

While meteorologists study weather over a few days or weeks.

Climatologists study how weather changes over months, or years,

or millions of years.

They're the ones that track global weather patterns and figure out the ways that

humans are affecting the global climate.

Cool cool, but maybe you're looking for something a little bit more extreme.

Meteorologists are a little passive.

Climatologists are doing research all the time.

You're looking for an adrenaline rush, a thrill.

Luckily there's a job for people like you.

This is Cindy.

KIRBY: Hey.

CHARLIE: She's a Hurricane Hunter.

That's her legitimate job title.

KIRBY: That's right.

CHARLIE: As a hurricane hunter,

she flies planes through actual hurricanes,

carrying radar and computer equipment, gathering data to help researchers track

hurricanes and predict their paths.

But maybe you don't fly planes.

CHARLIE: Like Bill. KIRBY: Hello.

CHARLIE: Bill's a storm chaser.

KIRBY: That's right!

CHARLIE: "Storm Chaser" is just a title for anyone who likes

to find, follow or maybe even photograph extreme weather.

KIRBY: Like me... Bill.

CHARLIE: Like big thunderstorms, or hurricanes, or even tornadoes.

Some people do this because they like taking pictures of the weather,

or maybe they do their own research projects,

or maybe they just do it for the thrill of it.

Oh, what's up Kirb. Where you been?

KIRBY: Around. CHARLIE: Cool!

But this still doesn't answer our question, right?

We know about all the jobs, but we don't know how to predict the severe weather.

KIRBY: Like when's the next tornado gonna hit?

CHARLIE: Or hurricane?

KIRBY: Or the next moonbow?

CHARLIE: Not sure if they can predict those.

But you guys know what we're talking, right?

KIRBY: We got to talk to someone?

CHARLIE: We need some answers. KIRBY: But no worries.

We know exactly who to talk to.

Josh and Karen from the Center for Severe Weather Research.

CHARLIE: So, when we got on this extreme weather kick, we decided to give Josh a call.

KIRBY: Hey Josh, it's Kirby!

JOSHUA: Hi Kirb, how about coming on over?

KIRBY: Perfect! See you in five!

CHARLIE: Boom! That easy.

So, we're off to the Center for Severe Weather Research to meet up with Josh and Karen,

you guys wanna come along?

Awesome, we'll see you in a bit.

KIRBY: See you soon!

Weird but true, worms rained down on a schoolyard in Louisiana!

CHARLIE: Hey guys.

You're just in time.

Today Kirby and I are investigating extreme weather.

Because earlier today, there was a tornado warning.

KIRBY: But check it out it kind of looks like it's clearing up outside.

Perfect. Let's do it!

CHARLIE: Let's roll!

So, we're off to Boulder Colorado.

Colorado means colored red in Spanish.

And it's a beautiful place to check out wildlife and wild weather.

Boulder is also where you can find the Center for Severe Weather Research.

The experts here at the CSWR study extreme weather like hurricanes, tornadoes,

and blizzards year-round.

KIRBY: NSF!

-National Science Foundation.

CHARLIE: There ya go...

"Center for Severe Weather Research", got a feeling they're in here.

Hello! Hey guys?

Josh? Karen?

Hi, I'm Charlie.

JOSHUA: Hi! Hi!

CHARLIE: Hi Josh.

JOSHUA: Hi. CHARLIE: Karen.

KAREN: Hi Charlie. CHARLIE: This is Kirby.

KAREN: Hi nice to meet you.

CHARLIE: Guys Josh and Karen! Josh and Karen, guys!

Meet Joshua, President of the CSWR and he's got three degrees from MIT.

If it's tornado related or has to do with 100 mile per hour winds Joshua's your guy.

His favorite weird but true fact is, that it's nearly impossible to see a rainbow

in the sky at full noon.

What got you interested in this stuff?

Why weather?

JOSHUA: Well we're really interested in things that aren't known.

So how do tornadoes form?

How do hurricanes produce severe winds right at the surface?

There are a lot of questions about weather that just aren't known.

CHARLIE: So, have you ever been inside a tornado before?

KAREN: Inside? A weak tornado.

CHARLIE: Ooh.

JOSHUA: We intercepted about 200-some tornadoes with our

program and we've only been hit maybe two or three times.

CHARLIE: Are you calm?

Are you freakin' out?

Cause I'd be freakin' out.

JOSHUA: Inside a tornado it's kind of scary.

It's very windy, stuff shaking around, sometimes things are hitting rocks or pieces

of buildings, things like that are hitting.

CHARLIE: Ooh.

JOSHUA: But we've done just fine, we're reasonably armored

and we stay pretty safe.

CHARLIE: How well can they predict when a tornado's gonna hit?

JOSHUA: Some things we can predict really well about tornadoes,

but what we don't know are the precise details.

So, what we're trying to do with all of our equipment is understand the differences

between the storms that make tornadoes and the ones

that don't so we can forecast them better.

CHARLIE: So, what are the best conditions for tornadoes to form?

JOSHUA: So, we need warm soupy air at the surface.

KIRBY: Yum.

JOSHUA: Soupy, sweaty, kind of.

KIRBY: Nasty.

JOSHUA: gross day, you want a gross day, but that's not enough.

The second conditions is really important a really strong jet stream

above that's warm soupy air.

So, you get a thunderstorm and the jet stream combined with the winds at the

surface makes that thunderstorm rotate.

CHARLIE: Hmm.

JOSHUA: and it's a rotating thunderstorm that's critical,

that's a super cell.

CHARLIE: Soupy air, jet stream, super cell, maybe tornado.

KAREN: Steamy weather. CHARLIE: Steamy weather.

JOSHUA: And then, and then the mystery ingredient.

CHARLIE: Which is? JOSHUA: And then tornado.

-Which is what you're figuring out right? -Yes, yes.

JOSHUA: That's right, that's right. KAREN: Yeah.

JOSHUA: we wanna know what's the special sauce?

What's the mystery ingredient?

KIRBY: Nice.

JOSHUA: That makes some of those storms make tornadoes?

We're still looking, we're still trying to find out.

CHARLIE: Weird but true fact, the fastest tornado ever

recorded was over 300 miles per hour.

That's faster than a racecar and Josh was the one to measure it.

JOSHUA: The average warning for tornadoes now is about 13 minutes and that's

much better than it used to be.

What we're working on is trying to increase the understanding so that we teach

the people who are making the future warnings.

CHARLIE: So, when the tornado warnings happening, everyone's hunkering down,

you guys are heading out right?

KAREN: We're hopefully already out there.

CHARLIE: Oh, you're hopefully out there.

KAREN: Yeah, we're already out there.

JOSHUA: If you see us pull into your driveway that's a bad sign.

So, we have a whole bunch of different kinds of instruments,

which we can show you.

CHARLIE: Yeah.

JOSHUA: That we drop around the tornadoes.

CHARLIE: Show us the way.

JOSHUA: These are called tornado pods.

We have about 20 of these and when a tornado's coming along,

we drive right in front and we drop them.

Hopefully the tornado runs them over.

It's pretty stable, the computer that collects all the data is inside this box,

which is very tough, and we measure the wind in the tornado two different ways.

One just with this regular blade.

This sonic Anemometer is using sound waves to measure the speed of sound in different

directions, kind of like what a bat puts out.

CHARLIE: Fun science word, Ami-nometer, which is a.

KIRBY: Nope the Anemometer.

CHARLIE: It's just a fancy word for a wind speed measurer.

JOSHUA: And then we have cameras looking at the debris flying by in the tornado.

There's the GPS so we know where it is.

CHARLIE: So how does the information you gather help people predict future weather?

JOSHUA: We're trying to learn more about what's near the tornadoes and also what's

going on inside the tornadoes where we really can't send people.

JOSHUA: So, Karen's setting up something that you'll really like.

When we wanna understand how tornadoes form we need to know what the temperatures

and humidities are way above the ground.

So, Karen is beginning to prepare a weather balloon.

KAREN: Yes hi.

CHARLIE: Karen's a bonafide expert in all things wind related.

She's a big fan of chasing down storms, so if you see bad weather brewing in Boulder

there's a good chance Karen's close by.

Karen's favorite weird but true fact: lightning strikes men more often than women!

So how high do the weather balloons go?

KAREN: They go up to about 60,000 feet.

Telling us what the temperature's like, what the winds are like,

and what the moisture is like through the whole atmosphere.

CHARLIE: So, would they be able to tell us if a storm's cooking today?

KAREN: They'll tell us if it's a good environment for a storm to form in.

JOSHUA: One really cool thing about those balloons is that they go up and up,

the balloon gets bigger and bigger.

KIRBY: Yeah.

JOSHUA: And bigger and eventually becomes about the size of a house

and then it.

KIRBY: Whoa! CHARLIE: Holy cow. JOSHUA: Pops!

KAREN: This is you balloon. CHARLIE: A little dusty.

KIRBY: Oh man.

CHARLIE: Grow. Grow!

JOSHUA: Just keep a grip on it.

KIRBY: Its filling up with tons and tons of helium until it gets massive enough

to fly up into space.

CHARLIE: This thing's going up 60,000 feet.

We're measuring temperature, humidity.

KIRBY: Wind speed. CHARLIE: Wind speed.

Are we doing this? Ready?

KIRBY: Ready. CHARLIE: Ready?

KIRBY: Let's do it.

CHARLIE: Alright ready go!

KIRBY: Oh man! CHARLIE: Woo!

KIRBY: That thing is moving.

Weird but true, the largest known hailstone in the US,

was about the size of a soccer ball.

CHARLIE: So, what are we seeing here?

KAREN: We're looking at the data from the weather balloon you just launched.

So, this blue line here that's your temperature profile.

CHARLIE: Mhm.

KAREN: So as your balloons going up,

you're seeing that the temperature is decreasing with height.

And it seems like it hit a real moist layer there, so that's probably the cloud.

CHARLIE: How long do you usually track 'em for?

KAREN: It depends on the project I can track them basically until they burst.

CHARLIE: Oh man guys launching our very own weather balloon.

I think there's no way we're topping that one today.

KAREN: Oh, we're going to top that so prepare to be amazed

and come see the Doppler on wheels.

CHARLIE: Doppler on wheels? KAREN: Yes.

CHARLIE: Let's check it out. KAREN: Yeah!

-Whoa!

KIRBY: Let's go. CHARLIE: Let's go.

KAREN: This is the Doppler on wheels.

CHARLIE: It's huge! KAREN: It is huge.

So even though the truck is really cool, what's really cool is the radar in the back.

CHARLIE: Yeah?

KAREN: So, we take this up to severe weather to study

tornadoes and hurricanes to really study what's going on inside.

KIRBY: So cool.

CHARLIE: Can we take it for a spin?

KAREN: We can. CHARLIE: Yeah.

KAREN: Yeah come on in. CHARLIE: Right now? Let's go!

Right now, we're in their mobile research vehicle

to see how they go chase thunderstorms.

I think we're heading in the right direction.

Once we know a storm's coming, we throw down the hydraulics, we fire up the transmitters.

Start the radar spinning, raise the mast and we're ready to get some data.

Alright Josh, looks like the Doppler on wheels is ready to go right?

JOSHUA: We're parked on the top of the hill we have good visibility all around,

we have the radar on and scanning and we're watching

to see if new storms are developing.

CHARLIE: That's a lot to control, does it ever go haywire?

JOSHUA: When we're out there on a very fast paced mission trying to chase the tornadoes,

we're coordinating what other teams are doing.

CHARLIE: Dropping pods.

JOSHUA: Sometimes teams are launching weather balloons,

it's a lot to keep track of.

CHARLIE: Jeez.

JOSHUA: We don't want anybody hurt so we're trying to keep

people just out of harm's way

and that's what we stay focused on in this mission control truck.

CHARLIE: You're getting as much data as possible, but everyone's good to go.

JOSHUA: Yes.

CHARLIE: So, we're back in the Doppler on wheels and this is the weather.

That's happening outside right, now right?

JOSHUA: We're watching some rain showers that are over the mountains,

so we can track them here.

The green and bluer areas are areas where it's raining, when it gets to be yellow

and pink again, that's when it's really hard or hail.

CHARLIE: Where...

KIRBY: How far away can this thing reach?

JOSHUA: Sometimes we can see 100 miles away,

right now we are looking about 40 miles.

Some of these cells are maybe about 20,

25 miles away and they're kind of moving in our direction.

So right now, we're in the storm waiting mode,

getting ready to go into that storm chasing mode.

CHARLIE: So hopefully it starts heading towards us fingers crossed.

Alright so I'm sure most of you think that storm chasing

is really high intensity stuff.

You're being thrashed around by tornadoes all over the place and that's what it is

like sometimes, but most of the time,

storm chasing is kind of more like storm waiting.

Yo you think we should check the radar?

KIRBY: Yeah probably. I'll go do it.

CHARLIE: Alright.

KIRBY: We got a uh storm coming hot over to the west.

JOSHUA: It's a little cool outside, the sun's starting to go down.

Today is probably not a great day for severe weather.

CHARLIE: Alright guys so unfortunately, we didn't see any storms today,

but that's alright cause we figured out how the actual scientists

do their storm chasing.

We gotta kick it back to HQ super quickly because we're almost running out of time

and I'm sure Josh and Karen have a lot of super important research to do.

Hold tight we'll see you real soon.

KIRBY: Weird but true, bolts of lightning can shoot out of an erupting volcano!

Definitely cooler than a moonbow.

CHARLIE: I don't know man. KIRBY: Oh, hey guys.

CHARLIE: Hey what's up?

We just got back from the CSWR.

KIRBY: The Center for Severe Weather Research.

CHARLIE: Ready. Go! KIRBY: Oh man!

CHARLIE: Woo!

We saw all of Josh and Karen's storm weather chasing equipment.

KIRBY: It was crazy cool!

CHARLIE: So, we pretty much have it figured out right?

How to predict these tornadoes.

What else did we learn today?

There were so many weird but true things.

A tropical storm becomes a hurricane when wind speeds hit 74 miles per hour.

An anemometer is a tool that can measure the wind speeds of a tornado.

Hurricane hunters fly planes through hurricanes to study them.

Hey guys it looks pretty clear outside.

Maybe we can go to the beach!

KIRBY: Perfect!

You go grab the beach stuff, I'll double check the weather.

CHARLIE: Cool, cool.

KIRBY: No storms, we're looking good.

CHARLIE: Alright, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you see that storm system over Moline?

Forget the beach stuff we gotta go chase this storm.

KIRBY: Let's do it.

CHARLIE: Alright guys we gotta go, but stop by again when we

discover more things that are weird but true.

KIRBY: Alright check it out. CHARLIE: We gotta go this way.

Captioned by Cotter Captioning Services.