the script

And that's the script that I've prepared to the film from the previous entry:

INSIDE THE TORNADO

With winds up to three hundred miles an hour and billion dollar pars of destruction, tornadoes are some of the least understood phenomena in nature. For years meteorologists and scientists have been trying to decipher how and when tornadoes form. That’s why electronics engineer, Tim Samaras and his team of storm chasers, hit straight for the action when everyone else is running away. Samaras travels with all sorts of low and high-tech tracking devices, whatever it gets to get closer than anyone has ever been.

In the back of Tim’s van are six 45-pound probes packed with instruments that measure barometric pressure, wind speed and direction, temperature and humidity. Any measurements these robes get from the center of the tornado will become the basis of a better understanding of how they form and how they maintain their strength.

Photo engineers at National Geographic designed a probe and stuffed full of still and video cameras with the hope it will survive the onslaught of these violent storms. If they can somehow manage to set down their probes directly into the tornado’s path, will the devices be able to record anything, or will they be smashed to smithereens?

First things first. Getting Mother Nature to cooperate.

In the spring when warm humid air rushing up form the south collides with cooler dry air, pushing down form Canada, severe storms or supercells are formed. When these masses collide, conditions are ripe for tornado formation. But scientists still are not sure exactly what in these conditions causes a tornado to form. And when you take a look, it’s obvious that although they generally form under the same conditions they come in all shapes and sizes. More than one thousand tornadoes touch down every year in the US, the majority forming in the swath of the Central Plains, known as “Tornado Alley”.

The team pair sets out on May 3^rd, towards the promising set of conditions in the Texas Panhandle*. Over the next six weeks they rack up over twenty five thousand miles, as they criss-cross the state hunting for that elusive perfect location. But when all goes well, the action is fast and furious. For Tim, he needs less than 10 seconds to flip the switch, make sure the probe is facing north and run back to the car. Then, back to waiting, hoping the tornado doesn’t swerve. For once, the storm chasers have luck on their side. They get their probes into position just minutes before the massive tornado hits.

[Samaras]:“This probe 3. You can actually tell, this side of the probe was actually the one facing the tornado, as you can see, there’s lots of debris packs where who knows what actually impacted the probe.”

With the new data form the probe, Tim made a surprising discovery. The barometric pressure inside the tornado drops further than anyone realized, helping to explain why tornadoes maintain their strength. The probe recorded images form the edge of the twister, but none form inside the tornado.

“The closer I come to that type of natural phenomens, the more you can detect them or discover them, the bigger is the fascination”. (Carsten Peter)