CAN YOU TELL WHEN THE ATLANTIC, OR PACIFIC, RISES OR FALLS A DEGREE IN TEMPERATURE?
CAN YOU CATCH A HAILSTONE AS IT PLUNGES TO EARTH?
CAN YOU HEAR A RAINDROP, FALLING INTO THE OCEAN?
THESE ALMOST SOUND LIKE ZEN RIDDLES… OR A "MISSION" TRULY "IMPOSSIBLE."
BUT IN FACT THEY’RE JUST THE KIND OF DETAILS WEATHER AND CLIMATE SCIENTISTS NEED TO KNOW.
COMPUTER MODELS START WITH OUR BEST UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THE WEATHER WORKS…
THEN ADD AS MUCH CURRENT DATA AS THE RESEARCHERS CAN GATHER…
AND EARTH’S FASTEST COMPUTERS CAN HANDLE!
WITH LUCK, AND SKILL, THE RESULT IS A FAIR APPROXIMATION OF THE WEATHER AND CLIMATE TO COME… NEXT DAY, AND SOON—NOAA HOPES—NEXT YEAR AND NEXT DECADE!
BUT FIRST YOU HAVE TO GET THAT DATA.
AND THAT PASSION FOR ACCURATE, CURRENT DATA IS WHY MORE THAN 200 NASA AND NOAA SCIENTISTS HAVE SET UP CAMP ON TINY KWAJELEIN ISLAND IN THE PACIFIC…
IT’S THE REASON WHY NOAA’S FLAGSHIP, THE "RON BROWN," THE LARGEST IN ITS FLEET, WILL COME TO SHORE FOR JUST 4 DAYS IN 2 MONTHS…
SPENDING LONG, LONELY WEEKS PATROLLING THE OCEAN, SCANNING THE SKIES WITH DOPPLER RADAR…
THEY’RE HERE TO GET "GROUND TRUTH", TO CALIBRATE INSTRUMENTS ABOARD THE US-JAPANESE TRMM SATELLITE.
super
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission
(TRMM)
LAUNCHED AS A SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT, TRMM HAS BECOME WHAT NASA CALLS "THE FIRST WEATHER RADAR IN SPACE."
INCREASINGLY NOAA AND NASA RESEARCHERS USE TRMM AS AN >OPERATIONAL< SATELLITE, USING ITS AMAZING SLICES THROUGH CLOUDS TO HELP PREDICT THE WEATHER.
AND THE MORE THEY RELY ON TRMM, THE GREATER THE NEED TO MAKE SURE THEY KNOW JUST WHAT THEY’RE SEEING.
super
Sandra Yuter
KWAJEX science coordinator, Univ.
Washington
Sandra Yuter sync, transcript
page 2
Nobody’s
actually looked at this kind of information in clouds, in these kinds of
clouds. We have lots of information over the U.S. and lots of information
near land. But the clouds over the tropical ocean, which is where we are
now, are a little bit different, and that’s why we’re here.
MINI-BLIMPS EQUIPPED WITH INSTRUMENTS…
RAIN GAUGES… AND MANY OTHER SURFACE INSTRUMENTS.
BUT MOST IMPORTANT ARE THREE PLANES, DESIGNED TO FLY RIGHT THROUGH STORMS TO SAMPLE RAIN AND HAIL.
Sandra Yuter:
By flying these guys along, we are able to look at the whole profile of
what’s going on in the cloud…
THE DC-8 FLIES THROUGH THE TOP OF A STORM…
THE TINY "CITATION", PACKED WITH INSTRUMENTS, FLIES THROUGH THE MIDDLE…
Sandra Yuter:
We want to try to improve the computer programs that the TRMM satellite
uses to estimate the rainfall at the surface and we have a lot of unknowns
about is going on in the cloud. And this coordinated kind of sandwich measurement
allows us to find out that type of information.
PERHAPS MOST AMAZINGLY THE "CONVAIR" FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON CAN ACTUALLY SPIRAL DOWN INSIDE A CLOUD, TRACKING WATER MOLECULES AS THEY FREEZE AND MELT, TAKING PHOTOGRAPHS OF INDIVIDUAL ICE CRYSTALS!
BUT EVEN THIS METEOROLOGICAL MAGIC IS NOT ENOUGH.
JEFF NYSTEUN WANTS TO SUBMERGE MICROPHONES IN THE OCEAN, AND LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF RAINDROPS!
super
Jeff Nysteun
Senior Oceanographer, NOAA
Jeff Nysteun:
We’ve discovered that different sized raindrops make different sounds
under water. So we can actually listen for small drops and for big drops.
super
small raindrops
super
large raindrops
Jeff Nysteun continues
And by listening to the level of sounds we can count the number of raindrops
present, and that allows us to actually measure rainfall rates using the
underwater sounds.
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO KNOW?
montage of mayhem
THAT’S WHY…
IT'S CALLED "EL NIÑO", SPANISH FOR "THE CHILD", BECAUSE SOUTH AMERICAN FISHERMEN NOTED UNUSUALLY WARM WATERS OFF THE COAST AROUND CHRISTMAS TIME, BIRTHDAY FOR THE CHRIST CHILD.
WARM WATER, FLOATING ON TOP, CHOKES OFF THE UPWELLING OF COLDER, NUTRIENT-RICH WATERS FROM DOWN BELOW...
...THE FISHING GETS REALLY BAD.
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL.
IN AN EL NIÑO, ABNORMAL WIND PATTERNS CAUSE THE MONSOON RAINS TO FALL OVER THE CENTRAL PACIFIC, INSTEAD OF INDONESIA AND AUSTRALIA, LEADING TO DROUGHTS AND FOREST FIRES.
ON THIS SIDE OF THE PACIFIC, THERE ARE FLOODS IN SOUTH AMERICA.
IN NORTH AMERICA… FLOODS IN the SOUTH EAST AND CALIFORNiA, AND MAJOR STORMS in the Northeast.
THE PHENOMENON’S BEEN OBSERVED FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS—BUT ONLY WITH THE ADVENT OF SATELLITES AND SOPHISTICATED DEVICES TO TRACK CHANGES IN THE TEMPERATURE OF THE OCEAN, HAVE WE BEEN ABLE TO SEE AND REALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT’S GOING ON.
IT TURNS OUT THAT EL NIÑO, AND ITS TWIN SISTER, LA NIÑA, ARE THE SECOND MOST POWERFUL INFLUENCE ON EARTH'S WEATHER, AFTER THE SUN AND THE SEASONS.
EL NIÑO EVENTS OCCUR ON AVERAGE EVERY 3 TO 5 YEARS, THOUGH THERE CAN BE PERIODS OF UP TO A DECADE WITHOUT AN EL NIÑO.
OVERALL, THE LOSS TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AS A RESULT OF THE 1982 EL NIÑO AMOUNTED TO MORE THAN $8 BILLION.
BUT IN ANOTHER DEMONSTRATION OF GLOBAL CONNECTIONS, A STRONG EL NIÑO MEANS IT’S GOING TO BE A WEAKER HURRICANE SEASON.
EL NIÑO’S SHIFT THE JET STREAMS SO THAT THEY RIP THE TOPS OF DEVELOPING THUNDERSTORMS BEFORE THEY CAN GROW INTO HURRICANES.
1982-83 WAS ONE OF THE STRONGEST EL NIÑO'S ON RECORD, AND MADE THE WORLD'S WEATHER RESEARCHERS AND FORECASTERS PAY ATTENTION.
THIS NETWORK OF BUOYS OUT IN THE OCEAN WAS ONE RESULT, AS WELL AS A POWERFUL NEW SET OF EYES IN THE SKY, THE NASA SATELLITES THAT HAVE GIVEN US THESE AMAZING IMAGES…
SO BEFORE THE 1998-99 EL NIÑO HIT, NOAA WAS ABLE TO ALERT AMERICA AND THE WORLD TO WHAT WAS ABOUT TO HAPPEN.
FISHERMAN AND FARMERS, HOME OWNERS AND EMERGENCY MANAGERS, FOR THE FIRST TIME HAD A SENSE OF WHAT WAS GOING TO HIT THEM.
IT WAS THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC "CLIMATE FORECAST" EVER, AND ALMOST CERTAINLY SAVED BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND MANY LIVES.
EL NIÑO¹S TWIN SISTER IS LA NIÑA, "THE LITTLE GIRL".
HER EFFECTS ARE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF EL NIÑO'S.
PRECIPITATION IS BELOW NORMAL IN CALIFORNIA AND THE SOUTHEASTERN U.S. AND LA NIÑA YEARS, LIKE 1999, RESULT IN MANY STRONG HURRICANES.SO WE THINK WE HAVE A PRETTY GOOD FIX ON EL NIÑO…
NOW RESEARCHERS ARE HOPING TO DEPLOY SOME OF THE SAME DEVICES TO HELP US UNDERSTAND WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE ATLANTIC.
THAT’S WHAT THEY’RE HERE IN THE IVORY COAST, WEST AFRICA.
WHY WEST AFRICA? BECAUSE THE STORMS THAT FORM HERE CAN SOMETIMES TRAVEL ACROSS THE ENTIRE ATLANTIC, BECOMING THE POWERFUL HURRICANES THAT RAVAGE CENTRAL AND NORTH AMERICA IN LATE SUMMER AND FALL.
THE RESEARCHERS HOPE TO DISCOVER WHETHER THERE’S A TELL-TALE CLUE IN CHANGING ATLANTIC TEMPERATURES, JUST AS THEY FOUND A SIGNATURE IN THE PACIFIC TO INDICATE THE FORMATION OF AN EL NIÑO.
ABIDJAN, LARGEST CITY IN THE IVORY COAST.
THEY CALL IT "THE PARIS OF WEST AFRICA" WITH WIDE BOULEVARDS AND LOTS OF TRAFFIC.
IN THE MARKETS… THE PRODUCE OF THE RICH RAINFOREST FARTHER INLAND.
CHANGES IN SEA TEMPERATURES ALSO DRIVE THE CYCLE OF FLOOD AND DROUGHT IN AFRICA, ANOTHER REASON FOR THIS EXPEDITION.
super
John
Kermond
Office
of Global Programs, NOAA
Kermond:
What
we are doing here in Abidjan is an international project involving the United
States, Brazil and France. We’re deploying moorings, "Atlas" moorings,
across the Equator, North and South of the Equator in the Atlantic, and
this is historic.
The
scientific community has now learned where to put the stethoscope to get
a better handle on the role of the ocean and its linkage with the atmosphere,
which collectively give us climate.
NOAA PROVIDED THE SAME TYPE OF BUOYS AS THOSE DEPLOYED ACROSS THE PACIFIC.
THE FRENCH CONTRIBUTED THIS RESEARCH CATAMARAN, THE "ANTEA."
Kermond:
Ocean temperatures
are critical in climate work. And it is interesting because only one degree
Celsius shift at the surface temperature of the ocean can upset the relationship
of the ocean with the atmosphere, and that’s critical because in the
El Niño years we have seen shifts as high as 5 degrees Celsius above
normal, and even up to 9 degrees above normal down in the water column.
BUT THERE WERE PROBLEMS. THE BUOYS WERE READY AND WORKING.
BUT THE "SHIP" WAS NOT IN "SHAPE."
French-accented voice:
"These engines
from a motor/voiture."
THE ENGINES NEVER DID GET FIXED.
IN CUTTING EDGE SCIENCE, NOT ALL FIELD CAMPAIGNS SUCCEED… AT LEAST, NOT AT FIRST.
LATER IN THE FALL SOME OF THE TEAM WAS BACK, AND THE BUOYS WERE DEPLOYED.
SOON, THEY HOPE, THERE’LL BE DATA TO MATCH THAT FROM THE PACIFIC.
TO READ MORE ABOUT TRMM AND THE KWAJELEIN EXPERIMENT, CHECK OUT LINKS FROM THE "LIVE FROM THE STORM" WEBSITE.
BE SURE TO READ ALAN NELSON’S FASCINATING JOURNALS OF THIS "FIELD" CAMPAIGN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN.
THEY USED TO SAY, "JOIN
THE NAVY AND SEE THE WORLD." BUT AS YOU CAN TELL, THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO
STUDY WEATHER AND CLIMATE WITH NOAA AND NASA CAN ALSO FIND, AS THE NAVY’S
NEW RECRUITING SLOGAN SAYS… "IT’S NOT JUST A JOB, IT’S AN
ADVENTURE."
WHEN WE THINK OF EXTREME WEATHER, PERHAPS WE THINK FIRST OF HURRICANES AND TORNADOES… BUT WINTER STORMS CAN BE EVEN MORE DEADLY.
ICE DOWNS TREES AND POWER LINES…
TRANSPORTATION SKIDS TO A HALT…
HAIL POUNDS CROPS
WINTER STORMS—CALLED NOR’EASTERS—ATTACK THE EAST COAST…
PEOPLE DIE ON THE ROADS… AND SHOVELING SNOW.
MOIST AIR FROM THE ATLANTIC SLAMS INTO COLD AIR FROM THE ARCTIC.
NICKNAMED "WHITE HURRICANES", THEY PACK ENERGIES MUCH LIKE THOSE LATE SUMMER STORMS.
OUT WEST, MOISTURE FROM THE PACIFIC BRINGS SNOW TO THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA AND THE ROCKIES.
HOWLING THROUGH MOUNTAIN PASSES, WINDS REACH OVER 100 MILES AN HOUR!
19TH CENTURY RUSSIANS CALLED THE COLD AND THE SNOW WHICH HELPED DEFEAT INVADERS… "GENERAL WINTER."
NOW, IN EARLY 2000, HERE COME NOAA’S "WEATHER WARRIORS" TO BEGIN A NEW SKIRMISH IN THE BATTLE TO UNDERSTAND SNOWSTORMS….
ONE SQUAD COMES FROM NOAA’S NATIONAL SEVERE STORMS LAB., IN NORMAN, OK…
OTHERS WERE DRAFTED FOR THE DURATION FROM THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE…
STUDENTS WERE RECRUITED FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH, AND SHOWN THE ROPES BY VETERANS OF MANY A LONG CAMPAIGN.
THIS WAS "METEOROLOGY BOOT CAMP" WITH LONG HOURS, LATE NIGHTS AND—SOMETIMES—EXTREME CONDITIONS.
Dave Rust:
So what I’m
gonna do is, look everyone, I want us to go thissa way (gestures)…
So this is for real…
LIGHTNING EXPERT DAVE RUST DRILLS HIS YOUNG TROOPS IN HOW TO PREPARE LARGE BALLOONS FOR LAUNCH IN SHIFTING WINDS.
LIKE SOME LATTER DAY BEN FRANKLIN, RUST HOPES TO STUDY ELECTRICAL CHARGES IN WINTER STORMS.
Dave Rust:
Let’s go.
Little more, little more. Whoa, Stop. Great, we’re ready for anything!
THE PROJECT IS CALLED "IPEX"—THE INTERMOUNTAIN PRECIPITATION EXPERIMENT, AND WOULD RUN FOR MOST OF FEBRUARY…
WHAT WERE THE WEAPONS "IPEX" WOULD TAKE INTO THE FRAY???
SOME SENIOR CITIZENS GO TO FLORIDA FOR THE WINTER, BUT ONE OF NOAA’S TRUSTY P-3’S, NICKNAMED "MISS PIGGY," CAME NORTH AND WEST FROM TAMPA TO REPORT FOR DUTY.
ITS CREW IS USED TO FLYING THROUGH HURRICANES.
NOW IT WOULD BE SNOW AND ICE THAT WOULD BE THE ENEMY.
FROM OKLAHOMA A CONVOY OF VANS AND TRUCKS BROUGHT TWO "DOPPLER ON WHEELS" RADAR UNITS FROM THE UNIVERSITY…
FROM THE "SEVERE STORMS" LAB CAME SPECIAL VEHICLES DESIGNED TO LAUNCH BALLOONS AND TRACK THEM AS THEY ASCENDED...
UP AT A SKI RESORT IPEX STATIONED A RADAR THAT POINTED STRAIGHT UP THROUGH THE CLOUDS…
ALL THESE WOULD BE CONTROLLED FROM THE IPEX "FORECAST OPERATIONS CENTER", AT THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE, SALT LAKE CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.
SALT LAKE CITY, DYNAMIC METROPOLIS IN ONE OF THE FASTEST GROWING REGIONS IN THE NATION.
DOWN BELOW, THE GREAT SALT LAKE…
UP ABOVE, THE MAJESTIC WASATCH MOUNTAINS.
HERE, IN WINTER, DEEP FRESH SNOW ATTRACTS SKIERS AND SNOWBOARDERS FROM ACROSS AMERICA.
SNOW MEANS SPORT FOR THE LOCAL RESIDENTS… AND MILLIONS FOR THE LOCAL ECONOMY.
OUT IN THE BACK-COUNTRY, AVALANCHES THREATEN TREKKERS, SKI-LODGES AND THEIR WORKERS…
AND IN 2002, THE WINTER OLYMPICS WILL BRING MILLIONS OF VISITORS FROM AROUND THE WORLD.
BUT, AMAZINGLY, NOT MUCH IS KNOWN ABOUT WHAT TRIGGERS SNOWFALL IN THESE MOUNTAINS.
super:
James
Steenburgh
Meteorology
Dept., University of Utah
Steenburgh:
There are very
large differences in snow fall over short distances. It’s not uncommon,
say, in the state of Utah for several feet of snow to fall in one big storm,
say, at Alto which is at 8500 feet and is a fairly famous ski area, and
have very little fall, maybe less than 6" or none at all in the Salt Lake
Valley, where Salt Lake City is.
THE TERRAIN OUT HERE IN THE WEST, WITH ENDLESS RIDGES AND PEAKS, IS TOO COMPLEX FOR SIMPLE MODELS.
THEN THERE’S INFLUENCE OF THE GREAT SALT LAKE ITSELF.
TO DATE, THERE’S BEEN TOO LITTLE INFORMATION, TOO LATE, ABOUT APPROACHING SNOWSTORMS, AND NO LONG TERM STUDIES.
THIS IS HOW THE BEST OF TODAY’S WEATHER STATIONS WORK…
super
Steve
Vasiloff
Research
Meteorologist, NSSL/OAR/NOAA
Steve Vasiloff
I’m
Steve Vasiloff and I’m a research meteorologist with the National Severe
Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma. We’re up at the Middle Bowl
Precipitation Gauge site. It’s one of several around the Wasatch Mountains.
This
is our precipitation gauge. As the snow falls into the top it falls down
and mixes with anti-freeze. As the weight of the liquid increases a pressure
sensor at the bottom turns that amount of weight into a liquid depth increase.
One
inch of water in certain conditions can mean up to 20"of snow, and in other
conditions one inch of water may only be 6"of snow.
This
is our electronic depth sensor. It bounces a sound wave off this board.
And the distance the sound wave travels is proportional to the depth of
the snow on that board.
NO MATTER HOW HIGH TECH, THESE STATIONS ONLY LET YOU FIND OUT WHAT’S ALREADY HAPPENED, ONCE THE SNOW IS ON THE GROUND.
NOAA WANTS TO BE ABLE TO PREDICT SNOWFALL OVER THE MOUNTAINS >BEFORE< IT HAPPENS.
BUT NATURE WAS NOT COOPERATING.
DOWN BY THE SALT LAKE, IT LOOKED MORE LIKE SUMMER.
AT IPEX HQ, THE TROOPS GATHERED FOR THE FIRST OF WHAT WOULD BE DAILY WEATHER BRIEFINGS.
Tom Blazek speaks
Good afternoon,
I’m Tom Blazek, I’ll be doing the weather briefing portion today…
THE FIRST FEW DAYS ALL THEY HEARD WAS THAT THERE WAS LITTLE PRECIPITATION IN THE FORECAST.
ONE OF THE CAPTAINS IN THIS WAR ON WEATHER IGNORANCE WAS DAVE SCHULTZ.
HE’D WORKED FOR MONTHS TO SECURE FUNDS FOR THE EXPERIMENT.
WITH NO SNOW, HE’D HAVE TO WAIT SOME MORE…
Tom Blazek:
Bottom line, in
terms of a widespread event, not looking good. Lot of dry air…
OUT IN THE FIELD, THE INSTRUMENTS ALSO WAITED FOR THINGS TO HEAT UP… OR, IN THIS CASE, COOL DOWN.
Steenburgh: (in meeting)
We could deploy
a single lab…
DAVE SCHULTZ AND CO-CAPTAIN JIM STEENBURGH CONVENE A COUNCIL OF WAR. THEY DECIDE TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE QUIET BEFORE THE STORM…
THE PLAN IS TO FLY "MISS PIGGY" OUT OVER THE TETONS, WHERE HEAVY SNOW SEEMS LIKELY.
SO IT WAS TIME TO SCRAMBLE THE FOOT SOLDIERS, AND GET THEM ON THEIR WAY…
super:
06:00
hours
Jim Steenburgh:
Where you guys
will be, right now, temperatures are in the upper 20’s, probably be
low 30’s today, so you might see some little snow showers, we’re
not expecting any major accumulations.
Dave Rust, off camera;
You ready to saddle
up?
THEY HAD TO LEAVE PRE-DAWN TO BE AT THEIR STATIONS BEFORE THE P-3 GOT INTO THE AIR.
NOW FLIGHT CREWS COORDINATED FINAL PLANS WITH THE SCIENTISTS.
FUEL AND LOGISTICAL SUPPORT ARE PRETTY EXPENSIVE, SO THEY HAD TO GET THEIR MATH RIGHT.
THE P-3 MIGHT BE CALLED "MISS PIGGY" BUT IT WAS TIME TO GET SERIOUS.
P-3 pilot:
Just so you get
a feel for it, go ahead and open it up…
THE STUDENT CONSCRIPTS GOT BASIC TRAINING IN SAFETY FROM THE EXPERIENCED VETERANS OF THE NOAA CORPS.
super
Dave
Tenneson
P-3
pilot, NOAA Corps
Dave Tenneson speaks:
OK, if we have
to put this plane in the water, my crew will be opening the life rafts.
Read your ditching placards. Read the little placard next to your seat.
Understand which raft you have to go out in if we have to go down in the
Great Salt Lake.
THE FLIGHT OUT TO THE TETONS OFFERS TIME TO CALIBRATE THE RADARS…
Dave Schultz to one
of the other scientists:
OK, we’re
staying at 11,000…
DAVE SCHULTZ GETS ON THE RED PHONE… NOT TO THE PENTAGON, BUT BACK TO IPEX HQ IN SALT LAKE.
BACK ON THE GROUND, DAVE RUST’S SQUAD LEARNS HOW TO LAUNCH A SERIES OF SMALL BALLOONS, ONE EVERY 3 HOURS.
THESE BALLOONS ARE STILL THE BEST AND LEAST EXPENSIVE WAY TO TAKE VERTICAL WEATHER SOUNDINGS, FROM THE GROUND UP TO ABOUT 50,000 FEET.
BELOW EACH BALLOON HANGS A SMALL RADIOSONDE.
THEY MEASURE TEMPERATURE, PRESSURE, DEW POINT, RELATIVE HUMIDITY, AND WIND SPEED AND DIRECTION… THEN RADIO THE DATA BACK DOWN TO GROUND.
MISSION CONTROL WAS A CONVERTED VAN, AND DAVE’S TRUSTY LAPTOP.
WITH THE STUDENTS LEARNING TEAMWORK ALONG WITH METEOROLOGY THEY EVENTUALLY MANAGE TO GET OFF A NUMBER OF PERFECT LAUNCHES…
Male student:
Straight up there!
SOON THE DATA IS FLOWING BACK DOWN, AND ON TO IPEX HQ…
TO GET COMPARABLE DATA OUT OVER THE TETONS, WHERE IPEX HAD NO INSTRUMENTS, IT WAS TIME TO MAKE THE P-3 FLY LIKE A SOUNDING BALLOON, SWOOPING LOW OVER JACKSON HOLE…
super:
David
Schultz
Research
Meteorologist, NSSL/OAR/NOAA
Dave Schultz sync:
We’re going
to descend almost to the ground. This is called a "Missed Approach." And
then take off again. That way we’ll get a profile of the atmosphere,
both going down with the plane and going up again.
THEY DESCEND TO 300 FEET… THEN CLIMB OUT STEEPLY.
headset sync
incomprehensible
burble from air traffic control!
SAFELY BACK AT ALTITUDE, A CHANCE TO RELAX.
super
Dave
Tenneson
P-3
pilot, NOAA Corps
Tenneson
Peanut
butter sandwiches go back to World War 2… (Is that right?) Oh yes,
this is very famous food. All flight crews have been eating peanut butter
and jelly since peanut butter and jellies were invented. Always extra chunky.
Best
part, of course, is the flying and I’ve got the best seat in the house,
right up front. The worst part is being out over the middle of the ocean
or some place very dark, and getting hammered by some storm and you really
don’t know why. Sometimes these storms when they hit the mountains
become just as violent as a hurricane that’s approaching landfall.
…basically
when it gets rough, keep the shiny side up and the dirty side down.
BUT THIS FLIGHT HAD DONE MUCH MORE THAN KEEP OUT OF TROUBLE.
DAVE SCHULTZ THINKS HE’S ALREADY SEEN SOMETHING NEW ABOUT THE ATMOSPHERE…
(Dave Schultz explains
and draws a diagram)
In this environment
the atmosphere is very stable, meaning that it’s very not conducive
to up and down displacements. And in this scenario what we would expect
is—if this is an East-West section across the Tetons—and the wind
is blowing here, this air is very stable, it does not want to move up over
the mountains, and so we would expect clouds and precipitation to be forming
on the west side of the mountains and the heaviest snow would fall here.
In this case, that’s not what we see. We see the stronger radar echoes on the East side of the Tetons, here. This is totally unexpected, and hopefully when we get back and have some time to analyze this case we may discover something new about the way the atmosphere works.
BACK HOME, THE SHAKEDOWN CRUISE HAD GONE PRETTY WELL… NOW ALL THEY NEEDED WAS SOME SNOW AND RAIN!
A FEW DAYS LATER, IT LOOKED AS IF THEY WERE IN LUCK.
THEY SCRAMBLED THE TROOPS.
OUT ON THE PLAINS… THE "DOW" REPORTED FOR DUTY.
DAY TURNED INTO NIGHT.
THE BIG EYE SCANNED THE SKY… AND THEN, AGAINST THE MOUNTAINS, BEGAN TO SEE ECHOES OF PRECIPITATION.
RESEARCHER JEFF TRAPP FINALLY HAD SOME DATA TO GET HIS "TEETH" INTO.
super:
Jeff Trapp
Research
Meteorologist, NSSL/OAR/NOAA
Trapp sync:
We’ve been out for about nine and a half hours, and right now it looks like we will probably be out here overnight. But I’ve got a full stock of cookies and apples and just for good measure… and a good stock of cans of Coke and we have students running back and forth. So it’s going to be a long night, but it’s going to be a lot of fun.
IT LOOKED LIKE LESS FUN FOR DAVE RUST’S BALLOON BRIGADE.
NOW THEY WERE OUT IN THE ELEMENTS THEY’D COME TO STUDY.
SLEET AND RAIN—AT LAST!
…TIME FOR THEM TO GO OVER THE TOP AND INTO ACTION…
Dave Rust:
Don’t get
behind me…
OK, Les, let it
go!
YEESS, it worked!
IPEX ENDED IN LATE FEBRUARY, WITH SEVERAL MAJOR STORMS DUMPING MORE THAN 3 FEET OF SNOW ON THE MOUNTAINS.
ONE MONTH OF DATA BUT THE RESEARCHERS SAID IT WOULD TAKE THEM YEARS TO ANALYZE THE RESULTS.
FOR BOTH THE "VETS" AND THE NEW RECRUITS IN THIS WINTER WEATHER ARMY, THE IPEX FIELD CAMPAIGN COULD BE COUNTED A VICTORY.
SOME OF THE STUDENTS WOULD BE HOOKED ON STUDYING WEATHER FOR LIFE.
OLD-TIMERS HAD ANOTHER CHANCE TO DO SOMETHING THAT WAS BOTH WORK AND FUN…
super:
James
Steenburgh
Meteorology
Dept., University of Utah
Steenburgh:
Basically I live
for skiing and meteorology, so for me this is a blast. After our first,
or second Intensive Observing Period I got home at 3:30 in the morning and
I couldn’t get to sleep I was so excited about the data we collected.
So this is not a job… Meteorology is a job for people who really love
the weather. If you like it, it’s very exciting to be involved in it.
Constantly having to forecast and having to put yourself out on the line
is a fun and challenging field to be in.
AT THIS VERY MOMENT, AROUND THE PLANET, THERE ARE MORE THAN 2,000 THUNDERSTORMS
A BOLT OF LIGHTNING IS BRIGHTER THAN 10 MILLION 100 WATT BULBS.
AND IS 5 TIMES HOTTER THN THE SURFACE OF THE SUN
THUNDER CLOUDS CAN REACH AS HIGH AS 60,000, TWICE THE HEIGHT OF MOUNT EVEREST.
SOUTH FLORIDA AVERAGES MORE THAN 90 THUNDERSTORMS A YEAR, MORE THAN ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE UNITED STATES.
AND LIGHTNING CAN STRIKE AS MUCH AS 10 MILES AWAY FROM A THUNDERSTORMSO TAKE COVER WHEN ONE APPROACHES
super:
Mark
Croxford
Hurricane
researcher, AOML/OAR/NOAA
Mark Croxford sync:
We just happen
to be in a great position right now because we actually have a rather large
squall line coming into Miami and these things…this is invigorating
because we’re standing here in this extremely humid air…it’s
like 90 degrees out here and it’s all flowing right into that beast
right there.
The great thing about these storms is that they bring air from the mid levels down to the surface and you’ll feel the temperature drop, like sometimes 20 degrees. And you’ll feel this advancing flow and you’ll know that’s air that’s been up 5, 6 kilometers.
This is a living system we’re looking at right now. I’m stoked, man…I can’t wait.
There’s a sea breeze in action right now. There’s wind that’s blowing off the ocean towards us and there’s also winds blowing on the other side of the system and what’s happening is they’re converging...and because that convergence…air’s got to go somewhere so it goes up, so you get these really big, tall clouds and the taller a cloud gets the more vigorous the convection, the more intense the system is going to be.
Dry air from up in the cloud is being kind of recycled, in a sense, down to the surface. And as that outflow, that air coming out of the storm moves forward, it’s denser than the air ahead of it, so it pushes air up ahead of it. So you’ve got this big mass and it pushes air up and that’s what these clouds are going to be. These clouds right here are going to be big, tall clouds.
If you guys see a cloud and there’s kind of a cauliflower surface to it, that means that the cloud is building very quickly and that there’s a very strong rising motion…the storm is very active.
Okay see up here. See how it’s a little more cauliflower in nature. That’s starting to pop a little bit. And also if you’re looking at a cloud and you see it really build fast and you want to sound hip, you don’t say look at that cloud building really fast, you say "look at that cloud poppin’…"
Feel the wind? Feel the breeze? Feel how the temperature is starting to drop? That’s the storm. It’s propagating this way. You can’t do anything about that refreshing feeling that’s coming on right now.
You see the streaks. You know that’s rain out at the head of the storm. What you have is little water molecules that are bouncing together and bouncing together and bouncing together and getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And so you have these updrafts that can hold the water up. Well, eventually the water gets too big for these updrafts to hold it up. So then you get rain falling out.
Another thing is with all this vertical motion, when you get a storm like this, say like you’ve been through the storm, take a look at the sky…sometimes what you see up higher than where the clouds were…you’ll see this little thin layer of cloud and what that is is because the storm had so much vertical motion it was depositing moisture at high levels. You might hear someone say altostratus, you might hear someone say cirrus. Cirrus is just leftover moisture from an old cloud.
We need more meteorologists…there’s a lot of data out there. One of my supervisors always says we have so much data we need more students. Oh, here comes more outflow. Oh there we go, that’s the real stuff right there. All right, now the wind’s really starting to pick up. You can feel it, you can also feel the temperature dropping. And you can see every once in a while. out there you get a good lightning strike and that’s one thing you really want to be careful about, so right about now I’m going be safe. I’m probably going to go take some shelter. All right, so I’m going to get out of here, so I’ll see you guys later.
IN "LIVE FROM THE STORM", PROGRAM 2, "RESEARCH TO THE RESCUE" WE’LL BE GOING BEHIND THE SCENES AT NOAA’S NATIONAL SEVERE STORMS LABORATORY IN NORMAN, OKLAHOMA.
THIS IS HOME TO THE TEAMS OF SCIENTISTS WHO FOR YEARS HAVE BEEN CHASING TORNADOES ACROSS THE GREAT PLAINS, USING DOPPLER RADAR TO TRY TO FIGURE OUT JUST WHY SOME SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORMS SPAWN TWISTERS, AND OTHERS JUST FADE AWAY.
AND WE’LL SEE, IN REAL TIME, WHAT STORMS ARE MOVING ACROSS THE NATION, LOOKING OVER THE SHOULDER’S OF FORECASTERS AT THE WEATHER SERVICE’S "STORM PREDICTION CENTER."
ONCE AGAIN, YOU’LL BE ABLE TO INTERACT WITH MANY OF AMERICA’S LEADING RESEARCHERS VIA THE "LIVE FROM THE STORM" WEBSITE.
REMEMBER, AS BEN FRANKLIN SAID, YOU CAN BE "WEATHER WISE OR OTHERWISE!"
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