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What's it like inside a Tornado? | Exciting adventures for kids · The Curious Kidcast | Fun Facts and Curious Questions

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  Imagine you're standing outside when suddenly the sky turns
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  green. Not blue, not grey, but green.
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  Like the colour of your least favorite vegetable.
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  The air gets super still, almost too quiet.
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  And then you hear it. A sound like 1000 jet engines
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  mixed with a freight train. That's really, really angry.
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  And here's the wildest part. Somewhere in that spinning
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  monster of wind and chaos, there's a cow just flying
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  through the air. A whole cow.
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  Today we're answering the question How does nature take
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  invisible air and turn it into a spinning column of doom that can
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  pick up a 1000 LB farm animal and launch it like a furry
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  missile? Stick around because this is
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  going to get weird. Curious kid cast?
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  Here we go. Questions poppin.
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  Minds will blow Big ideas. They're taking flight.
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  Let's explore. Feel the light.
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  Hey there, curious minds. Welcome back to the Curious Kid
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  cast, where we answer the questions that make your brain
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  do backflips, cartwheels, and occasionally question everything
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  you thought you knew about reality.
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  I'm your host, Charlie, and today we're diving into a
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  question about tornadoes that literally spins my head around.
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  Get it spins because tornadoes. I'll see myself out.
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  This awesome question comes from Jake in Nebraska, and Jake's got
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  a pretty wild reason for asking. See, Jake was eating his
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  spaghetti one night when he accidentally spun his forks so
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  fast that the noodles flew off and stuck to the ceiling.
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  His mum was not impressed, but Jake started wondering, if
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  spinning spaghetti can launch noodles at the ceiling, what
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  happens when the actual sky starts spinning?
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  Can it launch cows? Spoiler alert, yes, yes it can.
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  Mother Nature apparently woke up one day and said, You know what
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  would be hilarious? Flying livestock.
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  So what is a tornado? Well, imagine taking a giant
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  invisible straw, the kind you'd need if you wanted to drink an
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  entire swimming pool, sticking one end in a thundercloud and
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  the other end on the ground, and then spinning that straw really,
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  really fast. That's basically a tornado.
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  It's a rapidly rotating column of air that reaches from a storm
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  cloud all the way down to the ground.
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  They can lift cars like they're made of cardboard, eat entire
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  roofs into the next county, and basically redecorate your town
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  in the worst possible way. It's like if a toddler had
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  superpowers and decided to rearrange everything while
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  everyone screamed. But here's the thing, they don't
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  just pop out of nowhere. There's actual science behind
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  how they form. OK, so how does a tornado
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  actually start? Well, you need three main
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  ingredients. Kind of like making a cake,
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  except this cake is made of wind and chaos, tastes terrible, has
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  a zero star rating on Yelp, and will literally destroy your
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  kitchen. First, you need warm, moist air
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  near the ground. Think of it like a hot air
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  balloon. It wants to go up, up, up.
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  It's got dreams. It's got ambitions.
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  Second, you need cold, dry air higher up in the atmosphere.
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  This air is heavier and denser. Like that friend who always
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  wants to stay on the couch watching TV and eating chips.
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  It doesn't want to move. Third, you need something called
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  wind shear. That's when the wind is blowing
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  in different directions at different heights.
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  The air gets confused, like when your teacher gives you homework
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  and then immediately says it's optional.
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  Wait, what? The air doesn't know what to do,
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  so it starts spinning. It's having an existential
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  crisis, and that crisis is about to become everyone else's
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  problem. When these three things come
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  together, the warm air shoots up into the cold air really fast,
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  creating strong updrafts. Then inside the storm, those
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  updrafts can tilt that horizontal spin upright.
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  Suddenly you've got a vertical column of spinning air, and
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  that's when things start getting serious.
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  The air just got a promotion from lying around to standing up
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  and causing problems. This spinning vortex can be
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  several kilometres wide inside the cloud before it ever touches
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  the ground. It's brewing up there, getting
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  ready, like a villain in a movie who's planning their dramatic
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  entrance. You can almost hear it up there
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  going wait for it, wait for it. OK, now bam, tornado time.
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  And then it happens. Touchdown.
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  Not the football kind, although tornadoes do tend to move like
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  they're trying to score points against humanity.
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  When that rotating column of air finally reaches the ground, a
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  tornado officially forms. It appears as a classic funnel
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  cloud, like what you see in movies and nightmares.
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  Sometimes it picks up dust, leaves, and debris, making it
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  visible and giving it that classic dark, swirling look.
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  And sometimes, and this is the really scary part, it stays
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  almost invisible until it starts picking up stuff, so you don't
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  even know it's there until your garden gnome flies past your
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  window. Can move in really weird ways
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  too. Some travel in straight lines,
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  like they've got GPS and know exactly where they're going.
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  Other zigzag around like they can't decide which house looks
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  most fun to destroy. They often follow paths of least
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  resistance, which is a fancy way of saying they're lazy and don't
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  want to work too hard. Honestly, relatable.
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  Here's something cool. Not all tornadoes look the same.
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  You've got rope tornadoes, which are thin and twisty, like a
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  piece of spaghetti that's alive and angry.
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  Then there are cone tornadoes, which are wider at the bottom,
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  like an ice cream cone, except instead of ice cream it's pure
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  chaos. Wedge tornadoes are the really
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  scary ones. They're extremely wide,
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  sometimes more than a mile across.
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  If you see one of these, it's basically nature's way of saying
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  I'm not even trying to be subtle anymore, I'm just a giant wall
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  of spinning death. And then there are multi vortex
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  tornadoes. These have smaller mini
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  tornadoes spinning around the main funnel, like the main
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  tornado brought its friends to the destruction party.
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  So how strong are these things? Meteorologists measure tornado
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  strength using the Enhanced Fujita scale.
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  It goes from EF0 to EF5. Kind of like levels in a video
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  game, except you really don't want to reach level 5.
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  There's no final boss, there's just destruction and regret.
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  EF0 and EF1 tornadoes cause minor damage, like breaking tree
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  branches. EF2 and EF3 can tear roofs off
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  houses and flip cars like pancakes.
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  If a tornado is flipping cars, it's having a really bad day and
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  wants everyone else to as well. EF4 and EF5 tornadoes have wind
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  speeds over 300 kilometres per hour and can level entire
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  neighborhoods. They're basically nature's
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  eraser. OK, here's the big question.
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  What's it actually like inside a tornado?
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  Now, no human has ever deliberately gone inside a
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  tornado. Because that would be Let me
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  check my notes. Ah yes, completely bonkers.
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  Like that would be the worst decision since someone decided
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  to put raisins in cookies and ruin perfectly good desserts.
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  But scientists have studied them using radar, drones and ground
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  sensors. First, the wind rotates at crazy
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  high speeds and can lift basically anything off the
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  ground. Cars, roofs, trees, cows.
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  Yes, actual cows. Those 1000 LB animals that spend
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  most of their time just standing there eating grass.
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  They can become airborne. Mother Nature looked at cows one
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  day and went, you know what these need?
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  Flight. Second, the sound survivors
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  describe it as absolutely bone chilling.
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  It's been compared to a freight train, a jet engine, or a giant
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  waterfall. Imagine the loudest sound you've
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  ever heard, then multiply it by 100.
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  Your eardrums are like Nope, this is not in my job
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  description. I'm out. 3rd the darkness.
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  Even if it's 2:00 PM on a sunny Tuesday, the inside of a tornado
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  is nearly pitch black because of all the swirling debris.
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  So not only are you being spun around at ridiculous speeds, you
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  can't even see where you're going.
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  It's like the world's worst carnival ride.
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  No safety bar, no height requirement, just pure chaos and
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  darkness. And no, unlike hurricanes which
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  have a karma in the middle, tornadoes rarely have a calm
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  centre. For all practical purposes, the
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  inside of a tornado is chaos, danger and constant motion.
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  It's basically like being inside a blender but the blender is
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  also screaming at you and also the blender is the size of a
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  small town. Zero stars would not recommend.
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  So how do scientists study these things?
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  Well, there are storm chasers who literally follow storms to
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  observe tornadoes. It's like being a wildlife
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  photographer, except the wildlife is a spinning column of
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  air that wants to destroy everything.
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  There's also Doppler radar that can detect wind patterns before
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  a tornado even touches down. And scientists send drones into
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  storms. Imagine being a drone and your
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  owner is like, hey, want to fly into a tornado?
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  The drone is probably like, I was supposed to film a wedding
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  next week. But Nope, into the tornado.
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  You go for science. Now where do tornadoes actually
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  happen? the United States is basically
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  tornado central, especially an area called Tornado Alley.
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  This includes parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska.
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  And here's a wild fact. Even Mars has dust tornadoes.
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  They're much weaker than Earth's tornadoes, but still, spinning
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  air happens anywhere there's an atmosphere.
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  Maybe one day we'll have Martian storm chasers.
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  How cool would that be? Can we stop tornadoes?
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  Sadly, no. Even if we had every fan on
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  Earth pointed at a tornado, it wouldn't make a dent.
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  We just have a tornado with a nice breeze behind it.
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  But the good news is we're getting much better at
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  predicting tornadoes. Meteorologists can warn people
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  ours in advance. Knowledge and preparation are
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  our best tools. But wait, we're not done yet.
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  It's time for the Curious Kid cast quiz.
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  I'm going to ask you 3 questions about today's episode.
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  Ready. Let's do this thinking caps on
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  brain cells activate Question one.
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  What do meteorologists use to measure how strong a tornado is?
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  Is it A the Safa Simpson scale, B.
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  The Enhanced Fujita scale, or C the tornado toughness tests?
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  And the answer is B, the enhanced Fujita scale.
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  It goes from EF0, which is weak, all the way up to EF5 which
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  basically deletes entire neighborhoods.
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  Great job if you got that right. Give yourself a high 5 if
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  nobody's around, just high 5. The air.
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  The air will understand. Question two, What shape are
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  rope tornadoes? Are they A wide and wedge
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  shaped, B thin and twisty, or C perfectly square?
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  Because tornadoes respect geometry.
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  The answer is B thin and twisty. And no, tornadoes definitely do
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  not respect geometry. They didn't study for the
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  geometry test their chaos in physical form.
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  Question three. Do tornadoes have a calm centre
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  like hurricanes do? Is it A yes, always B yes, but
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  only very rarely in large tornadoes.
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  Or C No, they're chaotic all the way through.
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  The answer is B yes, but only very rarely in large tornadoes.
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  Most tornadoes are chaotic throughout, just pure spinning
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  madness. But don't count on it.
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  If you're in a tornado, it's not calm anywhere.
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  There's no calm, there's no chill, There's just wind and
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  regret. How did you do?
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  If you got all three right, you're officially a tornado
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  expert. If you got one or two right,
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  awesome job. And if you got 0 right, hey, at
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  least you learned something cool today.
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  Plus, now you can impress your friends with tornado facts at
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  lunch. All right, curious minds.
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  That's all we've got for today's episode.
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  I hope Jake in Nebraska got his answer.
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  And hey, maybe your mum will forgive you for the sealing
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  spaghetti. Now that you've explained the
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  science, tell her it's an experiment.
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  You're basically a scientist now.
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  If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to share it and
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  subscribe so you don't miss our next episode.
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  Got a question you want answered?
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  Head over to our website at curiouskidcast.com and send us
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  your questions. We love weird questions.
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  Weird questions are the best questions.
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  Until next time, stay curious, stay safe, and whatever you do,
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  don't try to chase any tornadoes.
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  Leave that to the professionals and the slightly unhinged people
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  with radar equipment, hey? We'll let your questions rise,
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  Lift them up to the endless sky. Everyone is as far so bright,
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  curious, kick ass, ignite the light.