PASSPORT TO KNOWLEDGE: PASSPORT TO WEATHER AND CLIMATE

Video 3: Tornado Detectives-Up, Down, and Round and Round

Student viewers go on location with NOAA's VORTEX project as they use Doppler radar and mobile mesonets placed on automobiles to venture perilously close to nature's fastest winds in search of answers.

"Destruction from the Sky." Explains why twisters occur most frequently in spring and summer in the area known as "Tornado Alley."

"Convection and Circulation" traces how winds moving in different directions, along with the collision of moist and dry air, results in the development of a rotating column of air, and sometimes a tornado.

"Researchers on the Road" follows NOAA and other researchers as they hit the highway to get up close to twisters and find clues to making more timely and accurate tornado forecasts.

Through the video and related activities your students will:

Simulate the rotation and funnel cloud of a tornado.

Understand how the collision of warm and cold air, and dry and moist air, occurs at frontal boundaries.

Identify how scientists and meteorologists use Doppler radar to track the position of storms and the nature of precipitation.

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