This webpage of Discover Tornadoes was produced based on a question someone asked the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL). You can read the individual’s question and the answer the NSSL gave below.
Does NSSL do things like they showed in the movie Twister?
The movie Twister was based upon work NSSL did in the mid-1980’s using a 55-gallon drum outfitted with various meteorological sensors. It was called TOtable Tornado Observatory (TOTO). NSSL tried for several years to put it in the path of an oncoming tornado, but had minimal success. TOTO did not have the sensors that fly up into the tornado; that depiction in the movie is entirely fiction and the technology doesn’t exist. It is possible that the technology could exist someday; however there are significant challenges with observations such as these (via NSSL).
THE SCIENCE OF TWISTER
Much about tornadoes remains a mystery, especially the details about what is happening inside the tornado at the surface of the earth. Researches have been trying to collect weather data on the ground from inside a tornado since the early 1970’s. Their mission has always been to discover new clues that will help increase tornado warning times and reduce false alarms, saving lives.
Dr. Al Bedard and Carl Ramzy from the NOAA Environmental Research Laboratory (former parent organisation of the NSSL) created the first device designed to take weather measurements in the actual path of the tornado. The TOtable Tornado Observatory (TOTO), named after Dorothy’s little dog from the movie The Wizard of Oz, was a 55 gallon barrel outfitted with anemometers, pressure sensors, and humidity sensors, along with devices to collect data. In a theory, a team would roll TOTO out of the black of the pickup in the path of a tornado, switch on the instruments, and get out of the way. Several groups tried to deploy TOTO over the years, but never scored a direct hit. The closet TOTO ever came to a success was in 1984 when it was sideswiped and knocked over by the edge of a weak tornado. TOTO was retired in 1987
TOTO inspired screenwriters Michael Crichton and Ann Marie Martin to develop a story around a similar device that became the 1996 movie Twister. Dorothy was a barrel designed to release hundreds of sensors into the center of a tornado, sending the data back to weather researchers on the ground, played by Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. To add to the drama, a competing team of storm chasers attempted to deploy a similar device named D.O.T. 3. The screenwriters, along with producers Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, consulted with Kevin Kelleher, Harold Brooks, and other NSSL scientists to make sure their script was realistic. The Universal Studios production with digitally-produced tornadoes became a blockbuster, making $500 million dollars at the box office.
Today we have instruments that are smaller and easier to deploy in large numbers to sample tornadoes. Tornado PODs are 1-meter tall towers of instruments with a flat base to measure wind velocity and direction at the ground level. StickNets are 2-meter tall tripods designed to collect complete wind data sets and atmospheric variables. Setting these instruments in a large array increases the chances one will be hit by a tornado. On the 5th June, 2009 in southeast Wyoming, a tornado did pass over one of the StickNet arrays collecting valuable data during the Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (VORTEX2) 2009 -2010.
From TOTO to PODs and StickNets, instruments are designed to have measure the weather in and near a tornado at the ground have the potential to add valuable pieces to the tornado puzzle, hopefully saving more lives.
