How The Eye of a Tornado Works

I actually grew up in Toledo, Ohio. You ever been? I have not. My wife is from Ohio, but never been to Toledo. It's actually a surprisingly cool town. Uh. The problem is it's at the end of tornado Alley. So I've seen plenty of tornadoes in my life, and each one scarier than the last. Spent many nights at like two in the morning in the basement listening to the radio. Right, I had nothing to do with the tornadoes though, So I totally didn't. That was more dear

old Dad than anything. Um. So, I have seen some tornadoes, and actually I thought I had kind of left him behind when we got down here to Atlanta. Yeah, not the case. No, you remember recently there are some tornadoes that ripped through downtown. It was the first time ever. So they go just tear the roof off of the suckers and it's it's just ugly. It looks post apocalyptic downtown still several weeks later and before even the thing is though I've seen I've seen some tornadoes here there.

I've never been in the eye of a tornado. Well now you know why, because only two people have that we know of, and you're not one of them. No, I'm not. I'm not, and if I had, I probably wouldn't tell anybody anyway. So yeah, that's it actually has happened a couple of times on record, and um, it's pretty amazing. Um, well, why don't you tell everybody first? What? What how it tornado forms? Well, yeah, I guess that

would help. A tornado is uh, you know, the thunder the thunderstorm comes in and uh in the lower atmosphere, Uh, the wind picks up and creates a horizontal, uh spinning tube on the ground and then once um the storm comes through, the rising air tilts it up and then you get what you normally think of as the tornado, which is the vertical kind of like a guy who's on his back is pushed up by his shoulders and now he's standing and spinning and spinning and hundreds of

miles and how he can have it exactly up to three hundred miles as fast as they get. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, it's extremely destructive, as everyone knows. Now. I know you mentioned that actually tornadoes are generally invisible since wind is invisible. Um, but that it's it's I've read that it's actually the debris and the dust that's kicked up that it gives tornadoes their shape, which is funny because tornadoes are called funnel clouds. But it's it's not

really a cloud. It's it's dirt and debris and cows and pick up trucks right from the movie Twister, cows flying across your screen. Yeah, that's one of the myths. Another one is that you should open your windows of your house to let a tornado pass through. That's not true at all either. So no, well, the yeah, a lot of people think that the low pressure found in a tornado makes your house explode. No, it's it's actually flying debris. You say, yeah, exactly, and and I read

Noah suggested that's that's not anyone we know name. Noah's the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or agency, one of the two. Uh, they suggest not touching your windows, leaving him closed and get to the basement exactly, which is just good advice anyway, it is. Yeah. So, um, let's get back to these guys. You found two and it was just two and this is this is Chuck's article by the way, everyone, it's a great one to um.

I appreciate that. Yeah, these two guys, one was and one was in nineteen forty three, so it hasn't happened in a long time, which is kind of strange. And uh, they were both farmers. Go figure um out in the you know, the middle of I think one was in Kansas and his name was Keller. Farmer Keller, Yeah, farmer will Killer. Yeah, farmer Keller. And uh, you know, he saw tornado coming and he's seen a bunch of these things, this is his account, and so he wasn't really scared.

He got his family down the storm celler, but um, before he climbed in, he for some reason to say. I guess he's kind of transfixed. He decided to kind of stay there and watch this thing as it approached, and it actually, uh, you know, tornadoes can hop up and leap, and I think it kind of hopped up on top of him. And the inside of a tornado, Yeah, it's like the eye of a hurricane's supposed to be really calm. So that explains why he didn't get sucked

up in the funnel cloud. And um, much like the movie Twister, they must have researched these uh, these guys. They it was really smooth on the inside, and there was constant lightning which lit it up from the inside and kind of a bluish green tent and these little tiny twisters would break away from the walls and make a hissing sound and zip over to the other side of the wall. And it was just really insane. And uh. The other guy was another farmer in Texas and he

had pretty Hall, right, yeah, Roy Hall. He had basically the same account, which so everyone pretty much feels like this is what it's like. The thing is with Keller, I was I couldn't understand why he would just stand there at the very least Mr Hall, who I think it happened, tune, It's a few years later. Um he uh. He actually went in the house, the tornado tore his roof off, and all of a sudden he found himself

in the in the eye of the storm. But a similar experience, right, exactly the same thing, you know, lightning inside and really smooth walls, and they both felt a sense of calm and oddly well being being in the center of this thing. And the storm in Texas actually killed a hundred people in the town. But he doesn't

like the farmer royal alone. Yeah, thankfully. Well, if you want to learn more about what it's like in the eye of a tornado, read What's it like in the Eye of a Tornado on how stuff works dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com? Let us know what you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. It's ready, Are you