The tornado problem

Unexplainable

Vox

Life Sciences, Science, Natural Sciences

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2023

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

8 minutes, 24 seconds. That’s the average amount of warning time people get before a tornado touches down. To do better, and to understand tornadoes, scientists need to confront more of these storms, head on. For a clean version of this episode and more, go to http://vox.com/unexplainable It’s a great place to sign up for our newsletter, view show transcripts, and read more about the topics on our show. Also, email us! unexplainable@vox.com We read every email. Support Unexplainable by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	2023 has been one of the stormiest years on record. Over 400 tornadoes hit the US
0:08.8	in just the first three months of this year, which has never happened before. And these
0:13.7	have been some pretty serious storms. Close to 70 people have been killed in tornadoes
0:18.5	this year, which is already three times more than all of 2022. And the main reason tornadoes
0:24.7	keep having this kind of impact is because scientists just don't know how to predict when
0:31.0	and where they'll actually touch down. We talked about this tornado problem in episode
0:36.6	a while back. And because we're still right in the middle of tornado season, we wanted to
0:41.5	share it with you again. It's all about exactly how tornadoes form. Why we're still struggling
0:47.0	to predict them and why one of the best ways to get better at this might be to go storm chasing.
0:54.7	Tornadoes are just like kind of metal. Like they're just loud, they're destructive. There's
1:17.9	no moving a tornado. It's the force that you have to deal with. You know like when you're
1:23.5	in a concert and it's just like way too loud. Like that's the image I have of a tornado. They're
1:29.8	like they're there to punch you in the gut and then they run away. I guess we should intro
1:37.2	ourselves real quick. I'm now I'm hasn't felt your Brian Resnick. This is unexplainable. Yeah.
1:41.9	And you've been reporting on tornadoes. What is the big unexplainable of that tornadoes?
1:47.9	We just don't know when they're going to show up. Like tornadoes, they are awesome. If you get to
1:53.8	watch them from afar. Right. When they come for you, it's horrifying and quite deadly. And they
1:58.7	don't come with a lot of warning. Okay. So recently I talked to this guy. He lives in East
2:03.2	National Tennessee. His name's Mo Odwani. It was March 3rd. It was actually my mom's birthday.
2:08.1	I always remember it. It's midnight and he wakes up. The night before we hadn't heard anything about
2:13.4	like really strong severe weather, just the normal typical Tennessee weather. And his phone is going
2:18.6	crazy. Well, I won't give it to me. I was like, what is that? But it was loud enough that I woke up.
	...

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