How to Film a Tornado

goneaway writes: "An interesting examination of the competitive world of filming tornadoes or "torn porn" as they call it over at the Atlantic. A fair amount of attention is given to the mechanics of filming and the inventions created to "safely" film while all hell is breaking loose."

Comments

Hurray for tornado filmers

[perdida]

It may be escapism, avoidance of personal life problems, or one of any number of distractions. however, most technical innovations in film and many other mechanical disciplines come about this way.

Stop motion film and animation, for instance, are very laborious ways of accomplishing tasks of communication that can be easily accomplished in other ways. However, the drive of fanatical individuals has resulted in some great art in those cases.

Anything that increases safety and stability while filming a tornado would also increase these characteristics in other chaotic situations, such as a war zone or the scene of a terrorist attack.

Re:aerodynamic/gyroscopic solution?

[ddillman]

There's a problem with this. A hurricane and a tornado are two entirely different animals. You're not going to be able to make a plane that will handle that kind of abuse. Especially not a small RC model.

Hurricanes may be large and deadly, but their force is spread out, and the winds are relatively straight-line and slow (average what, 100MPH?).

A tornado is an extremely chaotic beast, with a small vortex and much higher wind velocities (some approaching 300+MPH).

Totally tech ignorant yet "brave" stupod people.

[Romancer]

Wouldn't it be a little easier to mount a remote control airplane from radio shack or better quality, with an epoxy encased digital video camera with solid media?

Have one inner relay remote controlled to let go and start recording till the battery ran out. Fly this sucker into the tornado after making as many close passes as possible.

Then when the tornado is letting up track it with a simple directional locater picked up for under 100 bucks at the spy shops online?

Find the camera and crack open the solid media which sould survive anything short of getting broken in half against a house or something.

This is an idea that could be done under 500 bucks total. If I had the money these guys throw around I'd be making these planes in bulk and having my friends come out and help fly them into the tornados!

Step 1 to produce a good tornado video

[SuperCal]

Step 1... Set up where the tornados are likely to be. Any trailor park will be a good place to start because as everyone knows tornados are naturally attracted to mullet hair cuts

Re:Step 1 to produce a good tornado video

[mesocyclone]

The trailer park trick works. I am one of the folks who chased tornadoes in the midwest each spring (see userid). In 1995, we waited in clear sky next to a trailer park, watched a storm go up and produce a tornado.

I also have a model trailer home that I have mounted to the dashmat in my car... as bait. The first day we used it, we saw a tornado. Prices available on request.

See Storm Chase Vehicle - 3rd-5th pictures .

literacy

[Alien54]

This is a magazine known as intended for people who are used to material that has small print and printed without pictures. It comes from a tradition where the skill of the author had to make do because the technique of photographic illustration had not really made into print yet. The first issue of The Atlantic Monthly appeared in November of 1857, and billed itself as a "journal of literature, politics, science, and the arts." The Atlantic Monthly is where war-reporting in the American press was made into an art, with dispatches from Civil War battlefields by Nathaniel Hawthorne. (!)

In other words a magazine that never presumed it's audience was stupid or uneducated, but had a curiosity about the world, and a certain level of education.

Obvious Answer...

[NOT-2-QUICK]

As someone who has seen the movie 'Twister' no less than a dozen times, I believe the answer to capturing the ultimate 'Torn Porn' is painfully obvious. Simply do the following:

(1) Purchase a gross of small, clear plastic balls (this can be substituted by a large number of the clear plastic eggs that silly putty comes in...)

(2) For a solid week, every time you see one of those highly-annoying X-10, wireless camera ads while cruising the net actually purchase one - if my calculations are correct that should give the average browser approximately 538 wireless cams within a seven day period... :-)

(3) Insert a single X-10 wireless cam (with newly hacked, longer lasting self contained power source) in each of the clear plastic balls/eggs.

(4) Next...as they learned in 'Twister' , you need to attach twisty-twirly-thingy-mabobs ® made from old pop cans to the balls to help them enter the tornado's vortex safely.

(5) And finally, create a large tin can with a half-moon Plexiglas top that looks like a cross between R2D2 and the first Lunar Lander to house all of these video-balls.

Now that we have created the device, it is time for deployment. Once again, I will take a page from the movie 'Twister' and suggest that you strap the launcher into the back of a very large (not to mention, expensive) 4x4 truck. Then, simply find a big-ass tornado, put on the cruise, drive straight at it and jump out at the last minute!!!

Oh well...just a thought!!! :-)

Re:Totally tech ignorant yet "brave" stupod people

[Alizarin Erythrosin]

Good idea in theory, but it probably would not work well in practice.

First of all, there's debris. LOTS of debris. It would smash the plane to bits long before it got into the vortex of a large tornado.

Second, there's often hail in the general area of a tornado.

Third, it was tried with a helicoptor, but it was realized what the hail around the tornado would do to the blades (namely they wouldn't exist anymore)

Heh.

[Scoria]

IANAM (I am not a meteorologist), but...

Civilians film a lot of the tornado footage with their home video cameras. I would suppose that it is more dramatic, considering the majority of these people don't have any training, are terrified, and escape unscathed by chance. Their emotions are in strong contrast to tornado enthusiasts, who, from most peoples' observations, usually appear intrigued, not frightened.

Of course, to capture a tornado, a number of variables must be correct and you must meet several objectives first.

Obviously, there must be light (or you must have nightvision). A great number of tornadoes occur during the night hours and probably aren't captured on film due to this reason.

You must actually locate the area of a storm that is most likely to produce a tornado. The advent of Doppler [sic, it's named after a person] radar has made this task much less difficult. Meteorologists will usually search for the classic "hook and coil" signature that is indicative of a tornado.

Finally, you must arrive at the target location before the tornado activity disippates. They usually last less than 20 minutes.

Crazy, DUMB S.O.B.

[wowbagger]

The guy who wanted to drive a fortified SUV INTO a tornado shouldn't be allowed to breed. We will be hearing more about him in the Darwin awards, rest assured.

Look, I live in Tornado alley, and up to a few months ago lived in "pre-fabricated housing", a.k.a. a trailer home (a.k.a. "tornado bait"). I'm a part-time storm spotter, and I've seen the damage a "little" F-1 gustnado can cause, let alone an F-5 monster. An F-5 will quite literally suck the asphalt off a highway.

If I were out tooling around in, say, an M1A1 Abrahms Tank, and I saw a tornado coming, I would turn tail and run (at right angles to the path of the tornado) as fast as that tank's treads would take me. Wind speeds in the vortex of a tornado have been measured at OVER 300 miles per hour with Doppler radar. Even a tank will be blown over.

This fool, in his SUV, will be waking up wondering what all these midgets are doing around him. Either that, or wondering where all the harp music is coming from.

I just dodged around a storm last night trying to get home. By local standards it wasn't anything much, but it left the roads covered in hail, dropped over an inch of rain in thirty minutes, and had 60 MPH sustained winds. I was driving, listening to the two local storm spotter nets on 2 meters, and trying to spot the rain and hail shafts in the lightning. It wasn't fun.

I've seen the shows about tourists coming to the US to see a tornado - they spend 2 weeks driving from Texas to South Dakota to see a storm, covering over 3000 miles! Word of advice folks: just come over in the spring, and plan a normal vacation. See the
sights and enjoy yourselves. The tornados will find you. Trust me.

Re:Crazy, DUMB S.O.B.

[wowbagger]

Figure it like this:

For the horizontal force of wind to equal the weight of the tank the surface area normal to the wind times the stagnation pressure of the wind must be greater than the weight of the tank, or 65 tons. Consider a 20 foot by 6 foot rectangle - smaller than an Abrams. Thats 120 square feet, or
17280 square inches. Now, for that area to have more than 65 tons of force, you need a stagnation pressure of 7.5 pounds per square inch. Now, what is the stagnation pressure of a 300 mile per hour wind? (I honestly don't know off the top of my head - I'm an EE, not a ME or AE).

Also realize this: once that tank starts to tip, then the wind is going to get a much better grip on it.

Being in the eye of a tornado is much like being next to a very large explosion, save that an explosion doesn't keep going on for several seconds.

True, once you started to move with the winds in the eye, the forces go down quite a bit. But would you REALLY try it? I mean, an Abrams might survive being hit with a anti-tank round, does that mean you would go seek them out? How would an Abrams fare against a half-ton telephone pole at 150 miles per hour? Just the momentum transfer would give you a mile per hour of velocity.

Also, would you want to deal with the pressure drop? I know a tank is reasonably air tight, but just how air tight is it? And how would your turbine fare with the air loss.

Not knocking the M1A1 - they are an impressive piece of engineering. But I STILL would run from a tornado...

Just say no to tornography...

[scubacuda]

...and tornographic images!

It is a gateway, leading men to watch more violent things like police chases, boxing matches, and hurricanes.

It changes values and attitudes such as desensitization and "tolerance" which leads to more depraved tornography.

There are reports in many urban areas of increased trailor parks around tornography outlets.

Value of the Written Word.

[Alien54]

You're just karma whoring by ridiculizing a simple request for images. Do yo always tend to scrutinize anyone asking a f%*g question ?

Anyone familiar with the magazine will know that they do many pieces without pictures. And yes they also do occasional photo essays. But the written word is their forte.

Obviously, to answer your critique this should have appeared in National Geographic This is a matter of Taste.

The written word is preffered for many things.

For example, I doubt that you would want to see the linux kernel published as a picture book. You would need too many crayons.

The basic concept is that this is a magazine that specializes in the written word. Do not complain when the when there is a lack of pictures, because this is not the main audience they cater to.

The ability to read books and magazines without pictures is a rare and valuable commodity these days. Which shouldn't stop anyone from enjoying pretty pictures as well. Just know what you are looking at.