Smallscreen Features

NGC presents Disaster Lab: Into the Tornado, Thursday May 14

By April MacIntyre May 12, 2009, 3:38 GMT

In America, springtime means a rebirth and time to plant and get ready for the summer, but it also heralds the most lethal, violent land storms and weather events to hit the continent. National Geographic channel will bring the havoc and mayhem to you safely in your home this Thursday, May 14, as legendary storm chaser Tim Samaras measures superstorms on

National Geographic channel will bring the havoc and mayhem to you safely in your home this Thursday, May 14, as legendary storm chaser Tim Samaras measures superstorms on "Disaster Lab: Into the Tornado." All photos courtesy of national Geographic channelSpring means that Twisters are waiting to ravage a good swath of the country in what is nicknamed "Tornado Alley." The devastation from these storms often extends outside the normal range of these powerful events that pop up fast and travel "like the wind."

National Geographic channel will bring the havoc and mayhem to you safely in your home this Thursday, May 14, as legendary storm chaser Tim Samaras measures superstorms on "Disaster Lab: Into the Tornado."On the outskirts of Quinter, Kansas, a tornado is approaching at nearly 120 miles per hour, and veteran storm chaser Tim Samaras and his team are right where they want to be: directly in its path. This is the moment the team has been waiting for, and the storm could hit head-on. On Thursday, May 14, 2009, at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT in National Geographic Channel’s (NGC) Disaster Lab: Into the Tornado, Samaras heads to America’s heartland during peak twister season to measure the massive force of a supercell storm.

These storms can spawn powerful tornados that can unleash winds up to 300 mph and massive hail the size of softballs.

Samaras’ two-part mission is to first deploy scientific devices inside and outside a storm in hopes of gathering a 3-D snapshot of information that could improve tornado warnings, and then measure the impact of hail strikes to help passenger jet manufacturer Boeing improve aircraft safety.

Braving unpredictable storms, flooded gravel roads, downed power lines, lightening strikes and flying debris, Samaras’ team takes its chances on the next big superstorm looming overhead to get the data they need. “All right, let’s go, let’s go get it! … Let’s roll!” he says. While most people scramble to avoid deadly tornadoes, Tim Samaras — scientist, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and co-author of the soon-to-be-released, “Tornado Hunter: Getting Inside the Most Violent Storms on Earth” — races straight toward them.

For the past 20 years, he has careened across the United States' notorious Tornado Alley on a mission to predict the exact coordinates of an unborn tornado, arrive before it does and place probes directly in the twister's violent, swirling path. Now, in Disaster Lab: Into the Tornado, his next challenge is to study the interior and immediate exterior of a tornado by getting inside the storm itself. On the inside, specially designed, 85-pound probes outfitted with seven tiny cameras capture images of the tornado passing directly overhead. Added sensors measure conditions never documented before, such as temperature, humidity and wind speeds. Just outside the reach of the tornado, mesonet devises, or delicate, car-mounted weather stations, take wind speed and barometric pressure measurements. By comparing readings from both sensors, the team should be able to determine exactly what happens in the atmosphere when a tornado forms. This year’s storm-chasing expedition also has an added task. Samaras has been asked by the aircraft manufacturing unit at Boeing to measure the force and velocity of a hail strike — a common occurrence of storms that produce tornados — to help the company improve aircraft safety. Samaras needs to catch hailstones at least 2 inches in diameter — those big enough to create significant damage — and measure their impact. If he succeeds, he’ll be one of the first scientists to capture this data in the field. Then, Boeing can use the data to modify and better prepare passenger jets for the catastrophic results of deadly storms. “Part of our mission is to understand some of these very dangerous, very costly events to life and property so that we can take the data and apply it to building better structures, protecting ourselves from hail,” says Samaras. Tim Samaras, an electrical engineer and National Geographic grantee, has a new book: “Tornado Hunter: Getting Inside the Most Violent Storms on Earth,” by Stefan Bechtel with Tim Samaras (National Geographic Books; ISBN: 978-1-4262-0302-2, $24 hardcover) in stores May 19, 2009.