Tim unpacking the storm chasing van. |
I learned so much today! I’m so excited and happy; I don’t know where to start! The night before, we came up with a lot of questions about weather and tornados. I couldn’t wait another second to learn more about monster storms and receive the answers to my zillions of questions. I was so excited to finally meet Tim Samaras, the Host Researcher, who is a tornado chaser and an engineer. He has a very interesting background. Tim’s official title is senior research engineer, but he also has an incredible passion for tornado chasing and reasearch. Mixing his engineering abilities and his passion for tornados, he designed and built special probes to collect data about tornados. In the past, probes were too easily picked up by the winds and no data was reported back. However, Tim’s probes are very unique. The stronger the wind, the more the probes stick to the ground! The pressure of the wind across the surface
A storm may be on its way. |
of the probes and the turbulence across the tip of the instrument actually causes the probes to sink down to the ground. This idea was so cool to me!
In the morning, Tim gave a presentation on the formation of tornados, the various tornados he has studied in the past, and his personal experience with each of them. Everything wasfascinating to me. I can’t express how delighted I am! It just feels incredible to learn so much! I didn’t know much about meteorology and tornados before JASON. However, now I’m greatly fascinated with tornados, and I’m so eager to learn more! After the presentation, we also watched a video on severe tornados. I was amazed at how a tornado can lift up and ruin a house within seconds! It can also level an entire town in mere minutes! This was a realization for me how powerful nature is and how small we, humans, are compared to it.
Aligning the probes to measure changes in wind and dew point. |
Later, we headed out to three different locations to take weather data. It was quite fun! In the second location, 15 miles west of Denver, we even saw a dead rattlesnake! This was the first time I’ve seen a wild snake this close! At the third location at the foothills of Green Mountain, we watched a thunderstorm build. Tim described the cumulonimbus clouds that were moving toward us. That day we were really lucky to see a thunderstorm develop! This was similar to what Tim observes as he watches for tornados. There, we found significant changes in wind speed and direction, temperature, and dew point. This was because the thunderstorm collapsed and the strong wind spread out horizontally. It was wonderful to learn and explore so much about weather and monster storms with a scientist beside us to explain and answer our questions!
I had an unbelievable day today! Not only did I learn a lot, I also had a lot of fun. I don’t think any of my school trips can match this JASON experience!
There really are lots of probes. |