Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Thunderstorms

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

*Note with Alex's audio: the show uses his Zoom backup audio until around the 22 minute mark. It's totally listenable! And if you'd like to skip straight to the fancy mic audio, skip to 22:00. Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writers Robert Brockway and Seanbaby (1900HOTDOG) for a look at why thunderstorms are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Thunderstorms. Known for lightning. Famous for sound effects. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why thunderstorms are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. The great Robert Brockway and the great The Internet's Sean Baby return this week. Really

exciting. You may remember them from the episode of this podcast about ham. I also hope you know them from their incredible comedy website. It's called 1-900-HOT-DOG. And quick question, do you remember when comedy websites and their articles were fun to read and enjoyable to experience and it looked like somebody put some effort into it? That was common in the past. It's rare now we are linking to 1-900-HOT-DOG where you can have that feeling again and all the time. They have tons of new stuff all the time. They also have of new stuff all the time. They also have their own podcast. It's called Dog Zone 9000. So I am so glad Robert and Sean took time out of doing all that to guest on this podcast. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used

internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge Robert recorded this on the traditional land of the Podunk and Wangunk people. Acknowledge Sean recorded this on the traditional land of the Patwin, Muwekma, and Karkin people. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, Native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about thunderstorms. Thunderstorms is the top patron pick for the month of August. Thank you to Laura Hottie for the fantastic suggestion.

Two things to say about how we will tackle this topic of thunderstorms. One is that we are skipping over the middle school science class, high school science class, super basics of how thunderstorms work. Like you can just go read a science textbook to get, you know, that moisture and rising unstable air and a lifting mechanism come together to create a thunderstorm. You can get that in class. We are going to focus on the most astounding, most astonishing things about this pretty much worldwide weather pattern. They happen basically everywhere, and there's a lot more to how they do that than people think. And then the other note about this one is that part of the show will be Zoom

internet phone call audio, which is my backup audio system. It sounds totally good. You will totally enjoy the experience of hearing it, but I find that some people just want a heads up when that happens. Also, it's going to be my voice that's that way and just in the beginning because there was an initial glitch with my mic and then I caught it and fixed it and the rest of the show is regular mic audio. So I'll briefly be Zoom, and then, you know, by around the time the takeaways start, back to the microphone, back to the usual experience. Anyway, I think that's plenty of setup. So please sit back or attempt to wield

the hammer of Thor, because you are either in Norse mythology or in Marvel comics. He's just both things at once. We just did that. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Robert Brockway and Sean Baby. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Robert, Sean, it is so good to have you back on the show.

As you know, I always ask guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start. How do you feel about thunderstorms? Well, I do own a Hulk Hogan's Thunder Mixer. Of course you do. Nobody owns. You're the only one in the world. And I have fallen in love in the rain 37 times.

Well, I laughed at the concept of a Hulk Hogan thunder mixture and I don't know what it is. What is that? It's a real thing. It's like Hulk Hogan's magic bullet, right? Yeah, it's really small. Like, yeah, like it's more of a sex toy than a blender. I had a friend who actually used his and it broke after like three drinks.

You were absolutely poisoned. There's no way that doesn't poison you. I think he had the same agent as George Foreman and George Foreman got the grill and Hulk Hogan was really jealous of the grill and so he wanted something. So he got the Thunder Mixer, and it did not work out as well.

And then years later, Hulk Hogan did try to get a grill, which, again, people are like, we already have a George Foreman grill, we don't need a Hulk Hogan grill. And we just, you know what, we trust him more with meats. I don't know, just to look at you, you don't look like you handle meats well. Right.

You look like poorly handled meat, I think, is the problem. Hulk Hogan. well right you look like poorly handled meat i think is the problem yeah uh always sunny they said hulk hogan had the skin of a hot dog which is such an amazing burn that is exactly it of like a of like a movie theater hot dog like a hot dog that you're like oh that's been around it's an experienced hot dog floor of 7-11 hot dog new record for derailing the show do you think is this a new record no i i was gonna say your website is is definitely not about hot dogs and i'm thrilled how quickly we got to the topic of actual hot dogs this is great yeah this is our cunning plug 1900 hot dog.com that's where all this was going it's all a plan hulk hogan flesh skin

dot com that's right okay well i'll bring us back in here uh my experience with thunderstorms did you like that is that good oh that was professional right masterful uh i'm just kind of sick of them now man connecticut has been non-stop crazy thunderstorms for the last i want to say almost a month and i i've asked around and everybody's like this is not normal this is like we get you know they get summer thunderstorms like like a lot of places do but it has been just one long stop metal video and and it's it's kind of awesome like it hasn't really inconvenienced me in any way. So I'm here for this. I'm here for our new future, if this is what it looks like. I'm going to get non-metal armor, for sure.

Got to make that investment. You want that wood and lightning-proof armor. Ceramic armor, maybe. I got to spec into Druid a little bit. Yeah, right. A lot of class changes, yeah. Because for people who don't know the United States, well, it has a lot of thunderstorms, mainly in the central part, you know, like my

fiance's from Texas. They had tons of thunderstorms growing up Connecticut, not known for them. I don't know how many Connecticut stereotypes there are, but thunder is not one. Not a good sign for the planet. Yeah. Not, not great that it's like some of the craziest thunderstorms i've ever seen and i lived in like i lived in the desert for monsoon season oh no and these put it's put that to shame it is just nuts i also i associate the two of you with like cool and extreme vibes maybe robert you have brought the thunder to connecticut you know what i mean i mean i didn't keep saying that to everybody i put that on my change of address form just to bring in thunder. Yeah.

And I really, I got to say, I thought I was bluffing. Does that mean I am the cool vibe? You've got to be now. Sweet. Right. Cool cop, thunder cop. Yeah. It's a standard double thing.

That was really good, Schmitty. I'd watch that. You can be Jet Ski Cop, and now we're all on board. We all got our powers. Yeah, it's the time. Because on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. This week, that's in a segment called

It is time for stats. Now. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do,

do, do. Working on a night stats. Also a good option. Yeah. Trying to make some front page driving stats. You got to fight to stats. Mine doesn't work. That's from bloodport. No, it works perfectly. I recognized

it. The final countdown one, that's from BigBigAndy. Thank you, BigBigAndy. We have a new name for this segment every week. Please make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to SipPod on Twitter or to SipPod at gmail.com because I always want a new one. And sorry, Andy,

for one-upping you so instantly. Our bad. Yeah, that's the thunder. You were forewarned and here it is. But yeah, and like I'll say in the intro of the show, there's like middle school, high school textbook stuff about thunderstorms. This episode is about the most amazing things about them. And to me, this first number is incredible. The number is 16 million. And 16 million is the approximate number of thunderstorms worldwide each year. And is that number going up or down? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. I did. I found some stuff I'll link about. Thunderstorms are increasing in the Arctic

because it's getting warmer there. And that's also causing a bunch of fires because the lightning hits the trees and stuff. And they're thawing out a lot of aliens with crazy weather powers. That's just a thing. I have less reporting on that, but sure. Yeah, cool. I say up. Just take that to heart.

Up. Up is the official stance of this podcast. That's a fact. He would never lead you astray. He does so much research. And Schmitty definitely says that it's pretty much all thunderstorms all the time now. Get yourself some wood armor. I mean, the stat makes me want to. Like, there aren't that many days in the year, and there are 16 million thunderstorms in the world in a year. That's too many. Come on. Take it easy, God. Yeah.

Right. And like every thunder God makes sense to me in multi-God religions. Like, yeah, totally. Right. Of course. Yeah. You'd have a guy for that. Yeah.

So you could blame somebody when your wooden armor gets exploded. Because I don't think it would work, Brockway. I think the wooden armor is still going to... You know what? We're going to see. It's like, hey, what brought you to Connecticut? Testing wooden armor against lightning, obviously.

Why else would I be in Connecticut? Yes. And if it works, I am the mayor of Connecticut. I know it's not how that works, but it is now because I'm the master of light. Vote master of lightning. Yeah, he's got my vote. Vote master? You can't beat that. Well, so that 16 million number, it's coming from the Severe Storms Laboratory at the National Oceanic atmospheric administration or noaa and yes totally the coolest lab like that's that's the one you elect into if you have a choice but uh yeah that's

part of the u.s government they say also that that out of that 16 million thunderstorms about a hundred thousand of them are in the united states uh i don't know if that's a high or low amount it's just a lot it feels low i think we think we could do better. Let's put America back on top. Yeah. The U.S. is a lot of land, you know? More thunderstorms, everybody. Yeah. Get on it, listeners. Everyone do your part. Yeah.

If we all come together in one spot and get really mad together, I'm pretty sure that's how you make a thunderstorm. This weekend, sacrifice a goat to thor right when was the last time you did that you know tuesday and the uh the other number here coming from them is 2000 and the noaa says that that's how many thunderstorms are in progress at any given moment so like right now there's probably about 2 000 thunderstorms happening in the world it's mind-boggling yeah we gotta we gotta use that somehow yeah we'll plan a heist while the 2 000 thunderstorms are going it's perfect distraction oh we get those jet skis and we like oh no they already did that in a movie hmm yeah is that christian slater though i think we could probably

do better than christian slater better than christian slater are you insane i can heist better than christian slater all right i can't dj better but i can heist better can you glean the cube better no no i never even gained a single cube i never thought of like you know how in oceans 11 they're like we do the heist during the boxing match or whatever i never thought of every heist they were like we're doing it during the 2000 thunderstorms that's true you know if you think it, every heist has taken place during 2000 thunderstorms. It's brilliant. Like a broad daylight bank robbery. They're like, we'll wait until there's 2000 thunderstorms somewhere and then we'll do it. It's a great plan, boss. Well, the next number here is three. And three is the number of basic types of thunderstorms. three. And three is the number of basic types of thunderstorms. According to Mental Floss,

there's a single cell storm, and then a multi-cell storm, and then a supercell. They're all formed by the same general process, but also going to link National Geographic because they break down how supercells contain a vortex of rotating atmospheric air known as a mesocyclone and that's why they can generate tornadoes so i i feel like people are fascinated by tornadoes they already are way into that but but thunderstorms are what create them a lot of the time there's like four good band names in there mesocyclone and stuff yeah mesocyclone supercell, somebody's got to have Supercell. Supercell's got to exist. The next number here is over 60,000 feet. A lot of big numbers on this one. Over 60,000 feet.

That is the potential altitude. That's the number of feet in clown refrigerators at any given moment. From their murders? Yeah, cool. Of course, from their murders, yes. of course from their murders yes or the ones they find their clowns not gonna is implied leave a foot in the gutter if he

finds a foot he's gonna take that foot home but i mean that's very rare but that that foot is from another clown murder yeah statistically negligible bro from another clown murder i'm realizing i did not really bring up growing up in illinois which has a lot of thunderstorms but i'm now thinking of illinois with john wayne gacy so that's great that's that's weird that that's my go-to with my own capital thunderstorms and clown murders not related unless maybe well maybe they are that would be a terrible postcard. Thunderstorms and clown murders. Wish you were here. Somebody mock that one, though.

I disagree. I think it would be a great postcard. I interrupted the fact. It was over 60,000 feet. And that is the potential altitude of a thunderstorm's cloud structure. It could be that high in the atmosphere. of a thunderstorm's cloud structure. It could be that high in the atmosphere.

And that number's significant because it means that regular commercial planes, they're flying, what, 30,000 feet? And so a lot of times they need to go around thunderstorms or turn around if there's no way back. You can't really fly through one safely. And so- Call it shooting the cell. Yeah. Shoot the cell. But

yeah, like if you've been on a plane, everybody's experienced turbulence. And also it turns out most planes are really well designed to be hit by lightning. According to CNN, each plane in the U.S. commercial fleet gets struck by lightning about once a year. And, you know, you don't really notice the passenger. It just kind of happens. but the the wind and the turbulence of going like straight into the middle of a thunderstorm is too dangerous because they're high enough that a plane can't go over it so they have to go around it i bet there's one hot shot pilot out there who just doesn't back down who just sees those things building and is like not today yeah you gotta slam on the brakes trick the thunderstorm goes right past you oh that's a genius idea no one's ever thought of it

yeah i guess there's no movies about the pilot who gets into dallas fort worth a little late because they went around it huh that's not it's not the film yeah no one's watching that but we are watching shooting the cell right shoot the shot pilot christian slater well the there's one more number here before we get into takeaways uh the last number is 8.4 minutes 8.4 minutes not a lot of time and that is the approximate how long it takes for thunder cop to get the to talk no i wonder if he feels like that's too long like he's trying to get it down you know i just feel like it's too long it's kind of a while for a head to head interrogation

like cool cop would have that done in like yeah under five and jet ski cop. Oh man, like a minute 30. Dude came in in wooden armor and it took him like 11 hours to get a confession. And that really threw off his average. Telling you it works. But anyway, the number is 8.4 minutes and that's the approximate amount of warning time the average US resident gets before a tornado. So that's short.

It doesn't seem like enough. Oh, man. That's a lot. And it's a pretty recent number. The source for this is a Vox.com article by Brian Resnick written in June 2021. And he's citing Washington Post analysis covering 2012 to 2020. But they say the average amount of time is 8.4 minutes. Obviously, that means half of people have less time.

And that's meaningful. U.S. tornadoes kill an average of 68 people per year, and many other regions of the world have them, too, basically all of Europe. It's an important thing that apparently meteorologists are doing their best with. It's an important thing that apparently meteorologists are doing their best with. The article just says it's extremely hard to tell whether a supercell thunderstorm will or will not generate tornadoes. So you basically start to get warning as it's coming down or right before. I'm confronting a bias I didn't know I had here in that I guess I unconsciously thought of tornadoes is like, that's America's thing.

That's our, that's our one. Like I can't picture a tornado, like hitting a windmill in the Netherlands or something. Try to picture it. No, it's, it's just, this is America. You know what? Let's take it back. Tornadoes for Americans. Yeah.

We'll link a, we'll link an article this is the noaa again they say that the united kingdom has more tornadoes relative to its land area than any other country see that's that should be us yeah but americans need to get back on top right you picture just try it right now like close your eyes and really picture a british guy freaking out about a tornado. Absurd. It doesn't work. It doesn't work at all. They don't even have a word for it. They're like, what, what, what?

They're like, gobbledygook comes out of their mouth. You see a big twirly-whirly. They're like, they can't even describe it. Oh, it's a wheelie-walshy. Ridiculous. Well, and also the U.S. does lead the list of tornado counts. It's a willy-washy. Ridiculous. Well, and also the U.S. does lead the list of tornado counts. We get the most per year. And Canada is a distant second, it says.

So they're relatively rare in the rest of the world, but they do get them. So we can feel like some American pride in being number one. All right. I will. Yeah. Yeah. We're best at counting tornadoes at least yeah and i did i did before researching i kind of thought we were the only ones like i thought it just didn't happen other places at all but it's it's never really confronted that like it was something i

i wouldn't have told somebody like america's the only place that gets tornadoes. You get back across that border. But yeah, I guess I believe that. Like during the Olympics, like we're going to win these events because we get tornadoes. And other countries are like, this is track and field. I don't know why that would matter. It's like, shut up. We have the tornadoes. We are the tornadoes. Or like, I guess I'm picturing maybe if they are tornadoes, they're like smaller and wimpier than ours. Right. They're like little half-sizedadoes. We are the tornadoes. Or like, I guess I'm picturing maybe if they are tornadoes,

they're like smaller and wimpier than ours, right? They're like little half-sized tornadoes. Yeah, they're not like super tough American tornadoes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, ours are bigger. Yeah, this NOAA article kind of says that. Like it says those British ones are relatively weak. Yes.

So, yeah. I love the NOAA. But yeah, and if people want to read exactly how this works, that Vox.com article talks to University of Oklahoma meteorologist Amy McGovern about this in particular. And she says it's just not well understood why it's so hard to predict the tornado. She says meteorologists will look at two identical supercell storms and not be able to tell why you, why one does tornadoes and one doesn't just very hard to tell. Wizards. Yeah. Wizard.

Next. Rockway has not been wrong yet. Call Dr. Amy up and say. It is mostly wizards. And say, man, find that out.

We figured it out. But yeah, the, the tornado thing, like, like there's the movie twister about tornadoes and everything. I think people are way into them. We're going to celebrate thunderstorms more today, the generators of them.

Yeah, that was back when there was like that trend of people driving their trucks into tornadoes all the time. Like there's three or four reality shows about people that just drove into. Yeah, storm chasing was hot. Yeah, hot stuff. That was like ghost chasing today for you kids all those people must have gotten carried away by the winds right like they just they're all their shows got canceled at the same time it must have they all must have driven into the wrong storm when somebody else came out and was just like all those people dead

hey what about ghost hunting that makes sense the the ghost chasers were trying to find the storm chasers. Right. By this episode, there are two big takeaways about thunderstorms, and the first one is a large one. Let's get into takeaway number one. Scientists are still discovering amazing new things about thunderstorms, thanks to space exploration and thanks to volcanoes. I know there was a chunk of stuff there, but we're always finding new stuff about thunderstorms still, even though they've been here forever. And that's in particular thanks to space exploration

and then also closer analysis of volcanoes. Oh, our greatest scientists, volcanoes. Volcanoes. Yeah. And in the run-up to doing this like i i sent you guys a few pictures and then brockway was like that's great i have a picture to send back which is a dirty thunderstorm it's a huge volcano thing that was really cool that you know about that it's so amazing yeah well it's it's called volcanic lightning and only idiots call it a dirty thunderstorm but i love to call it a dirty thunderstorm. And I love to say it like this, it's a dirty thunderstorm.

Yeah, it's a real thundercop thing to say. It's great. Yeah. If anybody doesn't know about Volcanic Lightning, look up Volcanic Lightning or Dirty Thunderstorm for just the most metal thing you will ever see in your life they're pretty sweet yeah it's real album cover stuff it's it's really like just the the photographs are amazing it is if you squint you can just see dio in every picture i mean sometimes he's just like getting rocked off to the side and sometimes he's like real little up front giving you the double horns but he's in there it's like a where's waldo blinda and these thunderstorms like people have known about them i think for a long time but it's relatively recent to know how and why they work but the the basic situation is

after a volcanic eruption already cool there will often be a massive thunderstorm like on top of the location, which just is incredible. What an amazing sight and what an amazing situation. It's just nature getting down with itself. It's nature's guitar solo right there. Yeah. The new science is that they recently figured out that these thunderstorms work differently than regular ones. Because in a regular thunderstorm, you get lightning because of... The short version is you get lightning because of collisions between the frozen water particles inside a thundercloud. And them colliding creates a difference in electric charge. And then the difference gets resolved by

a bolt of lightning hitting the ground and a clap of thunder because of that energy releasing. So that's regular lightning. It's ice crystals and hail and other water colliding. In a volcanic lightning, volcanic thunderstorm, it's caused by volcanic gas and ash. According to Wired.com, quote, when immense bubbles of gas pop inside a volcano, that causes small but powerful explosions of incandescent rock and ash that fly hundreds of feet per second. All that ash creates friction, which creates static electricity, and that is what causes the lightning encircling a volcanic eruption.

God, that rules. Explosions rules explosions causing lightning explosion-based lightning yeah like and i i feel like this is a really out of the ordinary thunderstorm too like so many listeners have probably experienced one but they haven't experienced this this is different and you should go find it seek it out yeah get it if you get something like how like it sounds like how superman might have solved the problem in like a episode of the super friends like it's just like oh i've got to clap my hands to cause an explosion this will cause lightning it just sounds like total nonsense right i feel like if you survive one of those uh dirty thunderstorm like certainly i don't know if you're getting superpowers but you're getting something you're

getting like a like an amulet or like a oh yeah some sort of glowing cube i don't know if you're getting superpowers, but you're getting something. You're getting like an amulet or like some sort of glowing cube. I don't know, but you're getting something cool. Yeah, you should. Like, we'll also link a National Geographic article about a particularly huge one. The Anak Krakatau volcano in Indonesia, it erupted in December 2018. And part of the volcano fell into the ocean, causing a tsunami, and that also sprayed seawater into this volcanic thunderstorm. And apparently that made it...

Captain Planet came out. Yeah, more or less. And with the seawater, the article describes it as supercharging the thunderstorm, the seawater vapor. Uh-huh, yeah. The article describes it as supercharging the thunderstorm, the seawater vapor, and it created more than 100,000 flashes of lightning. At its peak, it generated 72 flashes of lightning per minute, which is more than one per second. So these are incredible storms. It's amazing the Earth can do this.

Brockway and I are starting a nonprofit that will take survivors of these storms and present them with a sacred cube. And task them with fighting crime. Now, if you had such a cube, perhaps you would gleam it. Am I right about that? Is that what you would do? Oh, you could definitely gleam these cubes.

Self-gleaming cubes. It's like an infomercial. Like, are you tired of gleaming cubes yourself? Some house mom just totally un-gleaming her cube. Like, oh, looking into camera. I can't gleam the cube. Get it together, lady. Buy our product.

We're in the black and white footage of the big red X over here. Yeah. With those volcanic thunderstorms, like, I love all this new thunderstorm science, because again, we've had thunderstorms forever and ever. But National Geographic says that the first theories about these volcanic ones being different came in some 1960s studies of a volcano in Iceland. And then it's taken further studies all the way in the 2010s to get stronger evidence to back the idea that these volcanic winds work differently. It's a pretty new finding, even though these are storms that

you would think are the first thing a meteorologist wants to work on. This is the Severe Storms Lab number one thing. Because every storm chaser that went into a exploding volcano thunderstorm did not come back oh true they all probably got exploded unless unless they had unfinished business on earth they did not come back which means an entire generation of children wanted to get vengeance for their missing volcano scientist parents. And that's why we, that's this generation of scientists. That's why we are understanding more.

Revenge. Just like really sad orientation at the Severe Storms Lab. Like I also have that background actually. Yep. Yep. Put me down too. We all lost our parents, didn't we? Yep. yep yep put me down too we all lost our parents didn't we yep well the next new thing here is uh it's it's pretty simple and and they're still just poking around with it but we're discovering some new ways lightning goes because we are starting to look at it from space because one one source of this is the International Space Station. Space.com writes about the Atmosphere Space Interactions Monitor, or ASIM,

and that is a new European Space Agency model on the International Space Station. It points out a thing I never thought about, which is that basically all study of thunderstorms has happened from the ground. And this ASIM module went online in 2018. And now they're seeing stuff like blue jets, which is upward shooting lightning. Nice. Also what they call ELVs, which is optical and ultraviolet emissions from the bottom of the ionosphere. I don't really know what that is, but they've published a lot of new... They call them ELVs? Like an elf?

It's spelled E-L-V-E-S. The same as elves. Like elves. Yeah. Maybe it's pronounced way differently. We got thunder elves. Yeah. Oh, it's rules. I need to learn more about thunderstorms. That's an ACDC Christmas song, for sure. Right.

Like, it's some part of the Silmarillion that I didn't read it so like i don't know but but those readers are like of course this is a thing everyone knows you know the guy who named it was a nerd that definitely could be a deep cut tolkien reference it really could yeah all the other scientists are like oh man are you sure terrence terrence yeah you can't it's gonna be sweet you're that named it arizona saurus because we found it in arizona yeah well i'm naming this lightning elves because thunder elves are the best yeah okay okay well also this this next thing sounds like a fantasy thing too this is a new

observation from the ground which is that in the past few decades we have discovered something called jellyfish sprites and i sent you guys a picture of one because it's very intense looking but this is just a new thing we're seeing in thunderstorms from the ground that's amazing yeah i'll fight that jellyfish Yeah, I'll fight that. Jellyfish sprites. I'll fight that with a bow and arrow. I mean, it'll have to be enchanted somehow, but I'll fight it.

Yeah, it'll need to be very enchanted, I think, yeah. Some kind of flying mount, I guess. This is getting complicated. Well, and if people want to see it, there's a great article about him by Teresa Mockamer for Smithsonian in August 2020. She's covering findings by Stephen Hummel, who is a dark sky specialist at UT Austin. And what he does is he sets up video cameras to just film Texas thunderstorms. And once in a while, he's gotten an amazing clip or picture of a jellyfish sprite, which is a massive electrical formation. The picture looks like a humongous red, like, War of the Worlds jellyfish in the sky. It's incredible. Yeah, it's definitely like the next Stranger Things.

That's going to be one of the bad guys. gonna be yeah one of the bad guys but yeah these things uh atlas atlas obscurus says they're categorized as a transient luminous event or tle they're usually red streaks in the sky and sometimes there's a dome-shaped burst on top that makes it look jellyfish shaped and it's red because always a chosen one is born it's it feels that way like it It burns less hot than lightning, so it's red. Very hard to see with the naked eye, but they can be as big as 30 miles across. And my favorite part, this is from Smithsonian, quote, the existence of these sprites was only confirmed in 1989. But since then, they've been photographed on every continent except antarctica and astronauts have even spotted sprites from space end quote so they're spreading yeah they're procreating someone laid a jellyfish sprite egg that's true it does feel like the

the intro to a pacific rim type movie i guess like we've started to see the monsters last 30 years more and more of them. They're on every continent now. Right, every continent. We need weird themed pairs of people and robots to fight them. Yeah, yeah. Does every continent have its own Christian Slater yet? Oh.

We might be screwed. America's so far ahead of the game on that. There's one more new thunderstorm discovery here. It's that astronomers on Earth accidentally figured out a way to measure the energy in a thunderstorm in a whole new way. We have the best measurements that we've ever had of that. There's two sources here. One is Jason Daly writing for Smithsonian. The other is Adam Mann writing for National Geographic. Those two sites have been amazing for this whole episode.

So in 2019, there's an observatory at Udhagamandalam in Tamil Nadu in southern India. They did a new study because they have, it's a massive array telescope that observes cosmic rays at a subatomic level it's like the most cutting edge astronomy and particle physics and everything else and then for some reason at some point they realized they could also just point that at thunderstorms and easily measure the voltage in them like they they just realized oh there's like

an extra thing we can do with our amazing astronomy equipment. Well, there's like 16 million of them. Probably didn't have a choice. Every continent, sprites on every continent. Yep. Warning signs are here, people. Yeah, and this is one of the study co-authors.

His name is Sunil Gupta. He's a high energy physicist. And he said, quote, this was more of an amusing episode for us than anything serious. We were studying high energy cosmic rays and interplanetary space, and not so much the thunderstorms, end quote. Just cute, just a cute little thing that happened to work. We learned how to speak to thunderstorms. Yeah, we're just like doing a bit. Yeah, we sold out humanity to them as as anybody would do. Yeah, you'll good luck uh it was fun it was all fun little exercise but and uh and so national geographic says their readings found that one thunderstorm

they looked at contained 1.3 billion with a b volts of energy and that's also 10 times higher than any previous reading of a thunderstorm. Whoa. Because the old methods were to either like release balloons into it with instruments on them or try to fly a very small plane through it with instruments. And that's just not a great system. And so this amazing cosmic ray telescope probably got us a much better number in 2019. Sweet. Yeah, but put so many Thunder pilots out of business was the coolest job.

At what cost? At what cost advancement? It definitely feels like it's also why we didn't know more about volcanic thunderstorms. It's so dangerous. That's such a dumb experiment to do, I feel. And so they were just sending balloons and planes in and getting numbers. And now they find out those numbers were all wrong. Right. They were kind of wasting their time, probably. Yeah.

Just wasting all those, wasting all those balloons on nothing. God. Yeah. Pilots coming back like, uh, I guess 12. Uh, 12 volts. Yeah. It's a lot. Definitely a lot.

Over. Off of that, we are going to a short break, followed by a whole new takeaway. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places, yes. I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my

podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Well, there's just one other takeaway for this main episode, and let's get into it. Takeaway number two. There are a few places on Earth where thunderstorms are the main weather pattern. There's going to be two specific places where the most common weather that they experience is a full-on thunderstorm.

I am house shopping, so lay it on me. I got heists to plan, so yeah. I i could use a tell me where that bank is so sean i've been tracking your zillow and i'm very sorry to say that you have actually purchased the thunderstorm house uh it's gonna be really loud it's not bad news at all okay sorry i'm gonna heist it i'm gonna heist your house and and at least one of these is a place that my sources say people live. There's definitely a community there and everything. Because this first one is a place called Catatumbo, which is in Venezuela. And main source here is the trilobite section of the New York Times.

It's a story written by Joanna Klein, also Atlas Obscura, and then NASA. Catatumbo, it's a story written by Joanna Klein, also Atlas Obscura, and then NASA. Catatumbo, it's a place in Venezuela, it's where the Catatumbo River empties into Lake Maracaibo in northwest Venezuela. And so there's this marshy area where the river meets the sea. But because of geography and other stuff, the location experiences a thunderstorm almost every day. According to an analysis published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, this location, Catatumbo, has a thunderstorm approximately 297 days per year. 297 out of 365, more than 80%. So like, what do they do for hobbies?

Like you couldn't play basketball. Sure you could. just really hardcore basketball you gotta start with big teams by the end it's one-on-one you wrap the ball in foil you play lightning ball oh my god that sounds awesome right catatumbo lightning ball yeah i'd watch that sport yeah the the article says also like a lot more people get struck by lightning than average in this town like it seems very hard to live there like it's it's amazing people are there yeah um and they're also apparently humongous thunderstorms it's not uncommon to count 200 rays of lightning per minute. Also, the story says that a lot of times the thundercloud, quote, turns into a giant lantern that brightens the night. And they interviewed somebody who said, quote,

That doesn't sound like meteorology. That sounds like some kind of curse. Yeah. What do they do? This is some sort of anime thing happening. There's going to be a giant robot hiding in that cloud has someone looked directly under katatumbo for some sort of a sleeping monster they should they got like a real suspicious looking mountain the the mountain

kind of actually yeah uh so what uh yeah we solved it they They actually do know exactly why this happens, because apparently it's just because of geography. And Joanna Klein describing it for Trilobites, quote, The secret lies in the unique topography of the place. To the south, the Andes Mountains cross Lake Maracaibo in a horseshoe shape, while the Caribbean Sea touches it to the north. caribbean sea touches it to the north so the cold mountain breeze descends into the valley at night and collides with the warm wind that comes from the sea and the lake in such a way that it creates optimal conditions for the lightning end quote they're basically just in a like a trough or a trench or something where warm and cold air do thunderstorm stuff more than 80 of days of the year a lot of fancy science terms to say big sleeping robot waiting for a school girl with daddy issues to wake it up

yeah it's it's just a it's a particular arrangement of geography so also this has been happening for a long long time like this is not a climate change thing this is not a man-made thing it's just how the the earth is shaped there they get constant thunderstorms and like they haven't done anything cool with it they don't have like they don't run their town on thunderstorms or anything so there there's a few little cool things they've done one is that this place is in a Venezuelan state called Zulia. And so the state flag of Zulia is a bolt of lightning design. It's so characteristic of the area that they're like, that's our thing.

Just lightning. Yeah, you gotta mention it on the flag. So that's dope. Yeah, that's a cool flag. Just a bolt of lightning and a person underneath it dying. Does anyone cook their food with the lightning? like take a pot of hot dogs outside some wooden armor hold it up to the sky yeah not till now my friend i mean also listeners like i'm sure i doubt anybody lives there but if anybody's visited let me know because also apparently the town does like what they call lightning tourism uh and and trilobites talk to alan hyten who runs a lightning tourism

business and like his pitch to them is hey like storm chasers have to run all over but quote the uniqueness of catatumbo is that you can sit here in our camp drink a cold beer and the storms will All right. Why are you guys out there chasing storms? They're right here. They're all coming here. They're just making their way over. Just meet up with them. Right.

Like, thunderstorms are so chaotic. And this is one of, as far as I can tell, two places on Earth where they'll just come hang. Like, you know. Like like you have an appointment. Sounds awesome. Appointment with thunder. Yeah. I'd probably have to leave my dog in America. I bet nobody has a pet dog there.

Oh, man. Yeah. Don't. Yeah. Don't own a dog there. That's not nice to dogs. We do. We only have cats.

And I think our cats are pretty chill with thunderstorms when we've gotten them here in north carolina they're like yeah okay sure yeah there is a thunder cat oh yeah thunder cats are things the whole team right i mean that's why we have them right my cat chitara yeah right that's who that's who i own well uh uh one more thing about this this catatumbo thunderstorm then we'll do the other one the the katatumbo thunderstorm has a couple nicknames one of them is the eternal storm of katatumbo which is just cool which is awesome the other nickname is the lighthouse of maracaibo and that's because this is such a huge and consistent thunderstorm that a lot of sailors

have used it like a lighthouse, like as a navigational landmark when they're off the coast of northern South America there. To stay away from. Yeah, hopefully. To stay very far away from. Right. It's a good tip. Like, whoa. But that brings us to the other place that kind of always has a thunderstorm, which is it's a location on the coast of northern Australia. But the thunderstorm is named Hector. People named it. They decided to name it Hector. Hector the Thunderstorm. Maybe not a great name for a thunderstorm.

And also its nickname from meteorology people is hector the convector because there's a lot of convection and thunderstorm so that's fun but uh but i got a lot of notes on the two names here but that's okay we don't need to get into it well and our key sources here are the guardian and gizmodo and then the University of Melbourne, because again, this is in Australia. The location is Ratuati-Irara. That's two islands. They're also known as the Tiwi Islands, and they're in the northern territory of Australia. It's just north of the mainland. And it's another geography thing. The islands are cone-shaped, and the Guardian says this helps to funnel the sea breeze rapidly upwards, convecting the warm and humid air, and that creates a deep and impressive cumulonimbus thundercloud.

And it is so consistent, it not only does a thundercloud form there most days, it forms at 3 p.m. local time. Whoa, you set your watch by it. Thunder o'clock, everybody. Yeah, like it's a clockwork thunderstorm in northern Australia. Man, storm chasers are so dumb. Seriously.

Right, Americans are running everywhere, and they could just go to Venezuela or Australia. You don't even have to wait for it. You can make an appointment. Right. don't have to wait for it you can make an appointment right well and and gizmodo says the name of hector came from allied pilots in world war ii because some of them down there were flying between the city of darwin and the island of papua new guinea and they would see it so often that they started using the thunderstorm as a navigational aid and then they also like gave it a person name because they just found it cool like oh my buddy hector is helping me do this flight so if you find if we if we can find another eternal storm we get to name it oh i would say

yes is that is that the rules yes let's establish that law on the show. Christian Slater. Perfect name. Way better than Hector. I've got a date with Christian Slater at 3 p.m. He's electric. No, he'll kill you. He will absolutely kill you. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Robert Brockway and to Sean Baby for bringing the thunder, sometimes as fake cops. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now.

If you support this show on Patreon.com, patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is a set of thunderstorms with surprising historical importance. And we don't mean that the easy way where there was a naval battle and like a storm sank everybody. These are thunderstorms that changed the whole course of history without just sinking boats. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than four dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring thunderstorms with us. Here is one more run through the big

takeaways. Takeaway number one, scientists are still discovering amazing new things about thunderstorms thanks to space, and thanks to volcanoes. And takeaway number two, there are a few places on Earth where thunderstorms are the main weather pattern. Plus, tons of stats and numbers from there, including the 2,000 or so thunderstorms happening all over the Earth right now. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Robert and Sean are the creators and heads of 1-900-HOT-DOG. 1-900-HOT-DOG.com is the URL. It's also on Patreon. A bunch of the site is free to read, and then there's even more

stuff if you support them. And Robert and Sean do more stuff beyond that. Robert is a novelist. I'm linking his latest called Carrier Wave. Sean does all kinds of amazing gaming projects, such as a game he made called Calculords. These two guys are bursting with entertainment for you. Many, many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. An incredible article from National Geographic. It's called Volcanic Eruption Sparked a Week-Long Thunderstorm and Scientists Want to

Know Why. That is by Maya Wei Haas. A really cool article for Smithsonian by Teresa Mockamer, where you can see Stephen Hummel's pictures of jellyfish sprites. And then an amazing piece from the Trilobites section of the New York Times all about the Catatumbo thunderstorms that's written by Joanna Klein. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And then beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken, Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode.

Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.