Short Stuff: Tornado Alley | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. hey and welcome to the short stuff I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too sitting in for Dave and this is. stuff you should know short stuff that's. right we're talking about tornadoes. again on the show uh we've talked plenty. about tornadoes and Tornado Alley even. but we're going to talk more about it. because probably since we did the last. update on tornado alley it seems like it. might be changing a bit right yeah. definitely for sure and just even. classifying tornado I'm sure we talked.

about the change over CU it would have. happened before we talked about it but. it would have been really new so yeah. there's a lot to dig into about Tornado. Alley and tornadoes one of the first. things to understand is that Tornado. Alley is a. contested area of the United States of. North America but the United States in. particular that runs essentially from. Texas why are you laughing at. me I love to Bear witness when you dig.

yourself into a word hole and climb back. out of it bra well watch this I'm. climbing out it starts in Texas it goes. all the way up to the dtas but it also. veers over it bends and hits like Iowa. Indiana Ohio and this the reason this is. considered Tornado Alley is because it. has the most tornadoes of anywhere else. in the United States which means that it. has more to tornadoes than anywhere else. in the world and the reason that is.

because it has the perfect conditions. for tornadoes to develop all right so. tornado producing conditions uh that you. mentioned are uh they form through um. instability in the atmosphere so a lot. of moist warm air beneath that cooler. drier air and then something called wind. shear which is when winds are uh. changing with height uh like the winds. are changing and then they're changing. at different height levels and if you've. got that then you got a pretty good.

recipe for a tornado and it just so. happens that those states that you. mentioned uh have a lot of that kind of. uh weather happening uh thanks to where. they are basically yeah so warm moist. air comes up from the Gulf of Mexico and. cooler drier air comes from the West. like say the Rockies and they converge. in that area that's Tornado Alley and. when you've got those two factors like. you said the wind shear and the. instability supercell thunderstorms can. break out and that's what spawn. tornadoes.

um and so anywhere you find that where. there's instability and wind shear um a. tornado can break out and they do break. out outside a tornado alley all the time. oh yeah bad ones yeah for sure and and. yeah it does it's not even North America. there's a long-standing myth that we. probably talked about about whether. there's tornadoes outside of North. America and there are but it's just that. there's so many more in North America. you can forgive people for thinking. they're just a North American phenomen.

yeah and the other thing too is in uh. the areas that you described as Tornado. Alley at least a lot of them have these. big wide open planes and that's just. kind of become the common thing you. think about is a tornado that you see. way far off in the distance uh coming at. you and that's not always the case when. they happen here in the American South. which you know we'll get to the fact. that that happens a lot more lately um. there are a lot more trees dense forest. it's not these big wide open Plains so. it's just not what you typically think. of as tornado country even though they.

will rip through Georgia or Alabama or. Tennessee just as well as they can. anywhere else yes um and then we should. also say that Tornado Alley is a fairly. recent term it was coined in 1952 by a. pair of Air Force weather casters major. Ernest J fush great name agreed and. Captain Robert C Miller and they I saw. that their method of predicting. tornadoes was like 95% accurate or. something insane.

who but the so the coin Tornado Alley at. about the same time the records of. tracking tornadoes begin because in the. United States our records our our. tornado activity records only date back. to the 50s yeah the 1950s um and in fact. it was I guess just before we started. the podcast in. 2007 uh that they and I guess I remember. talking about this being sort of a new. thing at the time like you said uh the. enhanced fueta scale uh or the f scale.

for for raing uh a tornado's intensity. or their damage intensity so that hasn't. even been around that long um but you. know how it generally worked was uh if. you're going to count tornadoes you're. literally going to do that you're going. to have people calling in to the Weather. Service you're going to have uh just. regular citizens you're going to have. maybe people in the government or. meteorologists weighing in but people. reporting tornadoes to the NWS is how. they keep track of how many tornadoes. they are yeah and you just know that the.

citizens that report tornadoes there's. only 10 of them but they're probably. responsible for like 60% of the tornado. reports yeah they're into it I mean good. for them so you don't just take those 10. people's word for it like you mark where. they're saying they saw a tornado and. then you send out um trained. meteorologists to go check afterward see. what kind of Destruction was there. exactly put their hand on a railroad. track yeah and um they look at the. destruction and based on the level of. Destruction they categorize with that.

enhanced fueta scale and that ultimately. what they're after is classifying it. based on presumed or estimated wind. speeds hence the destructiveness of the. whole thing and then they count it and. that's how they track tornadoes and. because it's only it only dates back to. the 50s and it's still kind of a clui. way of tracking tornadoes we're not very. good at looking at long-term trends in. tornado activity we're not there yet uh. so we're kind of reading tea leaves as. it were.

all right uh now I want to go have some. tea so let's take a break okay and we'll. be right back. [Music]. [Music]. okay okay Chuck so like we said you can.

have a tornado outside a tornado alley. sorry everybody um they just happen. there with more frequency there's also. plenty of less powerful tornadoes too. that happen in Tornado Alley um but. they're also they seem to be also. popping up in the southern Southeastern. us with much greater frequency and much. more destructiveness than it seems like. there used to be and that's actually a. point of contention not everybody agrees. with that but there's a a thought that.

there's a school of thought that Tornado. Alley is migrating. Eastward yeah they're calling this new. uh new Tornado Alley Dixie Alley some. people are calling it that other people. are saying like no that's not even a. thing uh and again these are the ones. that are going maybe through a forest or. something or in the case of Atlanta that. one year like in the city of Atlanta. which is very scary and weird uh but. there's not really a tornado season like. you think of In traditional Tornado.

Alley they can they can pop up whenever. I think it's more likely here in the. South to have a tornado in late winter. to early spring and uh in the Northern. Plains it's usually summertime but all. you need and these are the what the. meteorologists and tornado people try to. hammer home it's like yeah maybe there's. a tornado season you know quote unquote. season but like it's an atmospheric. condition and that can happen at any. time in any place really as long as. those conditions are met right exactly. so like you said some people are just.

like no this that's not actually a thing. it's not really moving um the reason. that a lot of people say it's moving is. because the climate change is just makes. sense right that as the as the Earth. warms if you need warmer humid air um. underneath colder air to create. instability and wind shear well then as. the Earth warmed you're going to have. more warmer humid air yeah and so yes. ipof facto tornadoes are going to be. breaking out much worse than they were. before much greater frequency and.

probably in places that you know you. might as well say Tornado Alley is. expanded right um yeah other people are. like not so fast they Buster. because yes there probably will be. warmer more warm humid air but because. the Earth's warming that also means. there will probably be less cooler drier. air right and so you'll have one of the. ingredients but you'll have less of the. other ingredient so you'll have less. wind shear which means that I don't know.

it might be a wash and at the very least. we can't really predict at this point. how climate change is going to affect. tornadoes so sit down I think that's. what the other scientists are saying. yeah it's kind of uh hard to believe. after all this time that uh this is as. far along as we are with tornadoes and I. don't know it just seems like something. that you could almost predict it's at a. certain point yeah because we've been. tracking them for a while um this how. stuff works article that we're basing.

this on uh mentions the what probably. the very first report by a European of a. tornado uh in what would become the. United States was by Governor John. Winthrop one of the Puritans if you. remember our Puritan episode oh yeah. yeah and back in 1643 he recorded a a. powerful wind that whipped up dust. lifted his meeting house that's probably. the de giveaway and knock down a tree. that fell on some poor Schmo uh who was. killed by it geez so he said in his log.

book tornadoes not so pure exactly or. very pure depending on how you look at. it I guess for yeah now that you. mentioned it you probably saw them as. God's Wrath for sure uh do you have. anything else yeah we should mention uh. the movie Twisters because that is a uh. I guess I don't know what they call them. these days but not a remake of the. original twister movie M uh but it has. long been known that Emily my wife is uh. loves the movie twister the first one.

mhm uh one of her guilty indulgences cuz. otherwise she just basically likes. independent film and foreign film and. twister and that's always sort of been. the joke in the family but uh she was. very excited to watch Twisters we rented. it the other night here at the house the. three of us watched it and Twisters gets. three big old thumbs down from our. that's a shame just not very good. unfortunately that's a tough act to. follow I mean the first the first one. was pretty great yeah I mean the cast.

alone Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill. Paxton and Helen Hunt and it was great. Carrie elwise really just a top-notch. movie and and holds up so uh I say don't. waste your time with with Twisters okay. and I hope no one that made that movie. or was in that movie listens to the show. cuz they're all great otherwise good for. you man uh Chuck was very nice at the. end there so of course that means short. stuff is out.

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