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National Geographic Documentaries - Mysteries Of The Tornado

Seizoen: 1 - Aflevering: 22 / 14 - Eerst uitgezonden: Onbekend - Episode ID: 550571

Most of us would run from a deadly tornado. Tim Samaras has dedicated his life to chasing them down, and this year he's armed with two cutting-edge probes that will provide a whole new picture of what's happening inside a twister. The first is designed to measure wind speed and air temperature in the heart of a tornado. Samaras' second probe is a contraption filled with a camera, GPS transmitter and temperature and wind speed indicators. Samaras will rig these to rise into the heart of a tornado. The information he gets from these probes will help him understand what is happening in the most destructive parts of a tornado. What is the wind speed? What is the temperature? Hopefully, they will also give us stereoscopic moving imagery of what the inside of a tornado looks like. But to get his data he'll have to find and catch the most concentrated destructive force in nature. Another researcher, Bill Gallus, is keen to see whether Samaras' findings match his own, because he's conducting one of the most unusual lab experiments ever. He doesn't risk his life to study tornadoes. He creates them. Gallus is a professor at Iowa State University, and he and his colleagues have built the world's first moving tornado simulator. He can actually conjure a vortex eight feet tall and four feet wide, with wind speeds up to 60 mph. The artificial twister enables him to study how a tornado moves over ground. It also allows a near dead-on simulation of how a tornado damages structures. Gallus and his team test their theories by building houses, factories and cars to scale and by watching their tornado smash them to bits. He has also built an interactive virtual reality tornado that allows immersion into the centre of a F-5 tornado, the most powerful of all. Can any of these scientists reveal the secrets of tornadoes in time to save lives? A new season of destruction is under way…