67 Storm Chasers-Mid

Storm Chasers FOCUS Question How do storm chasers study weather?

Follow That Storm A storm is brewing and it's a monster! It may be a thunderstorm, hurricane, or tornado. These storms are dangerous. When severe weather heads in your direction, your family probably takes shelter. You may even leave town—anything to get out of the storm's path. But a few people go toward or even into a big storm. Sometimes they are lucky to survive. Who are they? Storm chasers.

What Are Storm Chasers? Storm chasers are people who track extreme storms. Many storm chasers are weather scientists called meteorologists. Getting close to storms helps them collect more information than they could get from far away. How fast is a tornado moving? Will a hurricane hit the coast? Questions like these are hard to answer without getting close to a storm. Storm chasers follow storms to help keep people safe. They gather data, take photos, and shoot videos to convince people to prepare for the storm. Do You Know? Benjamin Franklin may have been the first storm chaser. In 1752, he flew a kite during a thunderstorm to study electricity.

Finding the Storm Storm chasers have to find a storm before they can chase it. They watch for weather patterns that usually lead to dangerous storms. By looking at wind direction storm chasers can tell which way the wind is blowing. Wind speed shows how fast the wind is blowing. Quick changes in air temperature and air pressure can mean a storm is brewing. Humidity, the amount of moisture in the air, is usually high near big storms. By looking at all these features of weather, storm chasers can predict when and where a storm might form. Technology Some digital weather sensors collect all these measurements at once.

Storm chasers also scan weather maps, satellite pictures, and radar images for clues that bad weather is coming. Weather Map Storm reports can show cloud and wind patterns that led to big storms in the past. If the same conditions happen again, a storm may be coming. Satellite Picture Satellites high above Earth take pictures of clouds. Storm chasers look at the shape and movement of the clouds to predict extreme weather. A hurricane looks like a spiral from space. Radar Image Radar devices send out signals that bounce off raindrops and water droplets inside clouds. Computers turn the data into colorful cloud maps that show the types of clouds. where they are headed. and how fast they are moving. This radar image shows several tornado and thunderstorm warnings.

Inside the Storm The storm chasers have located a forming storm, and it looks like a big one! Radar maps guide the team to the storm's location. They drive in an armored truck filled with weather instruments. They place sensors called turtles on the ground in the path of the storm. The turtles will gather data from inside the storm. The truck is equipped with side armor that blocks the wind from getting under the truck and flipping it over. Strong spikes attach the truck to the ground. The storm chasers are inside the tornado, but the truck keeps them safe. The job is dangerous, but storm chasers love the thrill of being inside a storm.