Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - TORNADOES!

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Over 2,000 times a year, all over the world, a meteorological phenomenon strikes the Earth with devastating consequences.  They can strike without warning and the worst ones have killed hundreds of people.  Yet, the secrets to how the work wasn’t understood until one determined man figured out their secrets. Learn more about tornadoes, how they work and just how deadly they can be, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://podfollow.com/everythingeverywhere/ -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over 2,000 times a year, all over the world, a meteorological phenomenon strikes the earth with devastating consequences. They can strike without warning, and the worst ones have killed hundreds of people. Yet the secret to how they work wasn't understood until one determined man figured it out. Learn more about tornadoes, how they work, and just how deadly they can be on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time. to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the Thuline podcast from NPR. I have to confess, the inspiration for this episode came from a tornado warning, which my area just went through a few hours before recording this episode. As I already had this topic on my list of future shows, I figured there was no time like the present to address the topic of tornadoes. Tornadoes are one of the most devastating and destructive forces in nature. So, let's start at the beginning to address what a tornado is. A tornado, as most of you

probably know, is a vertical vortex of rapidly spinning air. But why does such a vortex start, and why doesn't happen all the time? Full-blown tornadoes only occur when you have storms, and the reason for this has to do with the movement of air. On a normal day, atmospheric pressure is usually pretty stable. Regardless of what the temperature is, air pressure is pretty much going to be the same over a given area. There are some exceptions to this, which I will get to in a bit. However, when you have a storm, you have large differences in air pressure. In particular, there are certain types of storms that tend to cause tornadoes called supercells. This starts with winds blowing at different speeds and directions at different elevations. The boundary between these winds is known as

wind shear. These different wind speeds will create rotating cylinders of air. The cylinder of air brings moist, low-pressure air up to a higher elevation. The moist air, once it gets to a higher elevation, cools down, sometimes dramatically. The moist air, once cooled, will either precipitate in the form of rain or possibly hail, depending on how cold it is at the higher elevation. As this is happening, the column of air that is initially horizontal can turn vertical. The rotation of the vertical column is now translated to spinning. In a supercell, the entire cloud mass can start spinning. Sometimes this spinning can form a funnel cloud, and if it reaches the ground, then it's considered a tornado. There are vortexes that are not full-blown tornadoes. In the desert, you can often see dust devils.

In fact, dust devils have been observed on Mars. A dust devil can arise when you have very hot temperatures near the surface. The hot air will rise, and the wind shear will cause a rotation in the column of rising air. If there happens to be dust that is captured in the updraft, then you can actually see the vortex. On Mars, there is plenty of dust, and so it isn't an issue of high temperatures so much as it's just temperature differential. Sometimes the temperature differentials can be caused artificially. If there is a fire, it can cause a fire devil, where flames literally get sucked up into the vortex. Despite living most of my life in the Midwest, I have never seen a tornado firsthand. But I did actually see a fire devil when I was driving through.

Western Australia, which is a much more rare event. Likewise, if it sucks up smoke or steam, it can be known as a steam or smoke devil. If a tornado touches down on water, it's known as a water spout. In such a case, water is sucked up into the vortex. Water spouts tend to be short-lived because of the weight and temperature of the water. I should finally note that dust devil-type air vortexes occur far more often than most people realize, but if there's no dust inside of it, then people would never know it existed. These other vortex events seldom cause any real damage. Torpedoes are the events that do the most damage. As I mentioned in the introduction, there are over 2,000 tornadoes all around the world each year. The vast majority of these, over half, occur in the United

States and Canada. The highest concentration of tornadoes occurs in an area called Tornado Alley. And this is basically the Great Plains, and it goes up from northern Texas, through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and then southern Saskatchewan in Manitoba. While most tornadoes occur in the American Midwest, there are other pockets of tornadoes around the world. The country that suffers the most deaths from tornadoes is actually Bangladesh. In fact, Bangladesh had the deadliest tornado event in recorded history. In 1989, the Dalatpur Saturia tornado killed 1,300 people in Bangladesh. Of all the tornadoes in history, which have killed over 100 people, half of them occurred in Bangladesh.

Other tornado hotspots, that being defined as places that might have multiple tornadoes a year, include each coast of Australia, South Africa, Eastern China, Northeast Argentina and Uruguay, and Europe. Much of our knowledge of tornadoes actually comes from one determined researcher by the name of Tetsuya, Theodore Fujita. Ted Fujita was born in Japan in 1920 and studied meteorology. He very quickly became an expert on the subject of tornadoes. One of his early discoveries was how tornadoes have a cold-air downdraft. Fujita was working in the city of Kokura during World War II. Kokura was actually the original city that was targeted for the Fat Man bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki.

Fujita later studied the damage from the atomic bombs, which helped him better understand how atmospheric downbursts and microbursts worked. In 1953, he was recruited to come and work at the University of Chicago, and it was there he was given the nickname Mr. Tornado. The Midwest of the United States was the place to be for the world's foremost tornado researcher. Fujita developed several innovative techniques for studying tornadoes. He pioneered the technique of using aerial overflights after tornadoes to assess damage, as well as to photograph tornado paths. From this, he developed the theory of multiple tornado vortices. He noticed that tornadoes would often leave multiple paths on the ground, which were entwined with each other.

He was actually ridiculed for the theory at first, but later video evidence proved him to be correct. His biggest claim to fame, however, was the creation of what became known as the Fujita scale. which he introduced in 1971. If you've ever heard of a tornado called an F1 or an F5, the F stands for Fujita. The Fujita scale measures tornadoes by the damage they do. The scale categorizes tornadoes on a scale from zero to five. The original Fujita scale was replaced by the enhanced Fujita scale in 2007.

The enhanced Fujita scale is very similar to the original scale in how it categorizes tornadoes. An F0 tornado is one that does light damage, Small trees will be uprooted and shingles will get blown off houses. Wind speeds are between 65 to 85 miles per hour or 105 to 137 kilometers per hour. Over 52% of all tornadoes are categorized as F0. An F1 tornado has speeds between 86 to 110 miles an hour or 138 to 177 kilometers per hour. Approximately 33% of all tornadoes are categorized as F1.

And an F1 tornado will rip parts off of roofs and tip over most. mobile homes. F2 tornadoes have wind speeds from 113 to 157 miles per hour, or 181 to 253 kilometers per hour. Only 8% of hurricanes are categorized as F2, and this will blow entire roofs off of buildings, and mobile homes can be completely destroyed. F3 tornadoes have wind speeds from 136 to 165 miles per hour, or 218 to 266 kilometers per hour. Only 4% of all tornadoes are F3s. An F3 will uproot almost every tree in its path, will move large vehicles, and will tear the walls off of wood-framed houses. F-4 tornadoes and above are very rare. An F-4 tornado will wind speed of 166 to 200 miles per hour, or 267 to 322 kilometers per hour. About half of

1% of all tornadoes are classified as F-4. And an F-4 tornado will destroy wooden houses, blow trains off their track and rip the bark right off of trees. The greatest tornadoes are F5s. They have wind speeds over 200 miles per hour or 32 kilometers per hour. Only 0.05% of all tornadoes are this powerful. And an F5 can literally throw automobiles over 1,000 feet in the air. Because the Fujita scale measures tornadoes by their damage, it's possible to retroactively categorize hurricanes.

The largest recorded tornado in history occurred on March 18, 1925. An F5 tornado passed through three states, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. It lasted for three and a half hours, traveled the distance of 219 miles or 352 kilometers, and it moved forward at a speed of 73 miles per hour or 117 kilometers per hour. All three of those are records that have never been equaled on the planet Earth. The greatest tornado outbreak, which is an event that spawns multiple tornadoes, occurred in 2011. Known as the 2011 Super Outbreak, from April 25th to April 28, 2011, 175 tornadoes touched down in states from Louisiana to New York. One common myth about tornadoes, at least in the United States, is that they tend to be attracted to mobile home parks.

This isn't true, of course, but there's a reason for the myth. The vast majority of tornadoes are from F0 to F2, which, which will only do superficial damage to most regular buildings, but they're strong enough to totally destroy most mobile homes. Hence, when you hear about tornado damage, it seems like you're hearing more about mobile homes because you are hearing more about mobile homes, because 95% of all tornadoes can be that destructive.

If you live in an area that is susceptible to tornadoes, you're probably well aware of what to do in the event of one. If you aren't from a tornado-prone area, you probably have no clue what the protocol is. For starters, most communities will have a tornado siren that will be broadcast if there is an immediate threat of a tornado. These are basically the same as air raid sirens. They're usually tested once a month, and where I've lived, it's usually been on the first day of the month at noon or 1 p.m. Nowadays, warnings are also broadcast on mobile phones.

If there's a threat of a tornado, it's always recommended that you take shelter in your basement, preferably under the staircase. Tornadoes are surface events, and if your house was directly hit, it would usually throw debris outward, and below ground would be safe. If you're in a building without a basement, it's recommended you go to the interior room of your house on the first floor. These are the most likely to survive as roofs and walls will be damaged first. And if possible, lie in a bathtub as they are very heavy and less likely to be moved. On many farms, they will have special tornado shelters built, which are underground.

If you're caught out in the open, it's recommended that you lie flat in a ditch or in a low-lying area so that you won't be hit by flying debris. Most tornadoes occur in the late afternoon or early evening due to heat build up during the day. However, there have been tornadoes recorded at every time of the day. In 2017, I actually went on a tornado chasing trip. For a week, we drove all over the Midwest, starting in Denver, and going as far as the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. We didn't see any funnel clouds, but the experience of photographing supercells was extremely exhilarating. Tornadoes are some of the most powerful and destructive events in the natural world.

They can cause massive destruction and destroy communities. So the next time you hear about a tornado or some tornado-related disaster on the news, you'll now have an idea of how they are formed and how they are categorized. Everything Everywhere Daily is an Airwave Media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. I just wanted to extend a big thank you to everyone who is supporting the show over at patreon.com. I have show merchandise available there, including hoodies, t-shirts, and stickers.

Plus, it really just helps me get this show out every single day, including, of course, weekends and holidays. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you too can have it read on the show.