6 Popular Tornado Myths

As I was researching tornadoes for recent posts I kept coming across popular tornado myths. I thought it would be fun to scour the internet and find the most interesting myths. Here is what I found and the sites that I found them on!

1. Opening the windows will equalize pressure so that your roof doesn't fly off.
     -Don't do it! It won't help and just wastes your precious evacuation time. By the time pressure becomes an issue the winds of the tornado are so severe that it is probably already blowing shingles off the roof, breaking the windows, and throwing debris through the walls. You may see arguments to the contrary, but really, do you want to stand there debating with yourself about pressure? Or, do you skip the windows and just get you and your family to safety? ^{1 2}

Photo from article by Meteorologist Brent Watts

2. Tornadoes only happen where the ground is flat. I live in a mountainous region, so I don't have to worry about tornadoes. They also do not strike in large cities or cross rivers.
     - Wrong! While not as common, tornadoes have been reported in mountains and in cities! They also have no fear of water. ^{2 3 5}

From NOAA article Overpasses and Tornado Safety

3. If you are on the road and a tornado is coming, hide under an overpass.
     -Do NOT do that! Ground level is not a safe place to escape a tornado. The higher you are, the stronger the winds! An overpass may offer some protection from debris, but it could also draw debris from the storm. Wind speeds can also increase under an overpass because it acts like a funnel. If you cannot outrun the tornado then you are much better off lying in a ditch and covering your head. ^{1 2 4 5} 





4. A tornado is coming, the safest place to wait it out is the southwest corner of the house.
     -Not exactly... This was once thought to be the safest corner because less debris would land here. Now the safest place is thought to be the interior-most room on the lowest level of the building. The farther away from windows and exterior walls, the better; this will best protect you from debris. The lower you go the lesser the wind speeds. ^{2 3 4 5}

5. You can always see a tornado coming.
    -Wouldn't that be nice! Sometimes the rain is so heavy that you can't see the funnel cloud through the storm. Tornadoes can even cause damage before the funnel cloud has touched the ground. Have you seen pictures of a tornado hovering above ground? This doesn't always mean the tornado hasn't touched down, you just might not be able to see the air swirling at ground level. Remember, it is the dust and the debris swirling around in the air that makes a tornado visible! ³

Photograph by Ian Wittmeyer

6. If the sky turns green, a tornado is coming.
   -Well, maybe. Turns out this is still up for debate. Seems to be that if the sky turns green a tornado may be coming. This may occur when green hail clouds accompany the storm, or maybe the red light from a setting sun reflects off blue clouds... though I could have sworn red and blue  made purple... anyway, it is suggested not try to predict tornadoes based on the color of the sky, instead listen to weather and news reports, and heed all warnings! ⁴




I hope you have enjoyed these tornado myths. Do you know of any that I may have missed? Or, do you have any questions about tornadoes? I would love to look into it for you and get you answer!

Here are the sites I used to bring you these popular tornado misconceptions, please check them out for more information.


¹NOAA - National Climatic Data Center
²TornadoProject
³The Weather Channel - Tornado: Myths
⁴AccuWeather - Top Five Tornado Myths Debunked
⁵Stormhorizon.org - Tornado Myths & Tornado Reality


Stay tuned for future posts on tornado safety tips and how to prepare for this season's storms!

Earth Hour - Turn Off Your Lights!

Today (3/23/13) is the day of Earth Hour from 8:30 to 9:30 pm. For that hour people and businesses are supposed to turn off  all their lights. Earth Hour started March 31st, 2007 in Sydney, Australia, with over 2 million participants. The next year saw over 35 countries, and possibly 50 to 100 million people participate in Earth Hour. It has continued yearly, last year 152 countries joined in, and this year hopefully there will be even more countries and people participating. I myself plan to turn off the lights in my apartment for the hour.

Many countries are participating this year, and you can view the different activities using an interactive map. In my area, Jersey City, Nutley, and Bloomfield are encouraging people and businesses to participate in Earth Hour. The Element in New York City will be switching to candlelight in the lobby. There will be a toast to Mother Earth and the proceeds from the bar during the hour will be donated to the World Wildlife Fund.

Germany participated in the event as well. At the time that I wrote this post it was past ten pm and the hour was up. People in Berlin had been invited to gather at the Brandenburg Gate, where the lights were turned off.

Markus Schreiber, The Associated Press

Check out Aruba's Earth Hour Facebook page!

People in countries all over the world are turning off their lights, planting and protecting trees, signing petitions, and helping anyway they can to support conservation.

You can help too! If you are reading this before 8:30 pm on March 23rd, turn off your lights for the hour and spread the word! 

If you read this post too late to participate in Earth Hour 2013 then I urge you to go to earthhour.org to join, or start your own, I Will If You Will challenge.

Nate Coleman from The Weather Network challenged that he would give up meat for a week if 500 people would pledge to eat one vegetarian meal a week for the rest of the year. 

Check out more I Will If You Will - Earth Hour challenges and accept one! 

Sadly, I did not learn about Earth Hour until today, at about 5 pm actually. Luckily, in time for me to turn off my lights and to try to quickly spread the word through this post and social media. Next year, I hope to do more to raise awareness in my area and get others to participate as well.

I hope you will join me in Earth Hour 2013 and next year for Earth Hour 2014!

Firenado! No, it's not a Syfy film...

Ok, so massive swirling columns of air are pretty interesting. Water spouts, which are a type of tornado over water, are pretty cool too.

But then, I saw this video:

A fire tornado! It is absolutely amazing, and I just had to know more about this incredible event. So, off to one of my favorite sites to gather information, HowStuffWorks. Got some great info from this site once again!

(National Geographic also has some amazing pictures and more information on the topic.)

Turns out that even though I had never really heard of fire whirls or fire devils before, they are actually pretty common! They just aren't documented very often because of the extreme conditions in which they occur. When there are large disaster fires, wildfires, and even house fires most people don't stick around to watch! It's hot, it's smokey, and just plain dangerous. If you know a firefighter though, ask him or her if they've ever spotted a firenado! 

These fire twisters may look like tornadoes, but aren't! They are actually a type of whirlwind. A whirlwind also looks a lot like a tornado, but isn't one. Alright, let's back up a little.

There are two types of tornadoes: supercell and nonsupercell. A supercell tornado has to come down from a thunderstorm, it has to make contact with the ground and have winds of over 65 miles per hour. The nonsupercell tornadoes are the waterspouts and the landspouts. These come from clouds that aren't thunderstorms yet and may never even develop into storms. They don't last as long and are weaker.  

Whirlwinds are not tornadoes because they don't come down from the sky, instead they come up from the ground! Hot air from the ground rises rapidly and starts spinning. When that happens it can kick up dust, dirt, and debris giving it the look of a small tornado. 

So, a fire tornado is actually a whirlwind that develops because a fire has caused the ground to heat up. The swirling air shapes the flames that become trapped in the core of the swirling air.  

Not a true tornado but still pretty cool!

It's a Twister! It's a Twister!

I find tornadoes utterly fascinating. I expect that it all started with The Wizard of Oz; the 1939 version of course! I watched that movie a lot when I was young; I still watch it. When my sister and I were kids I remember her being freaked out when Dorothy sees Miss Almira Gulch turn into the Wicked Witch while in the twister. This was always my favorite part of the movie.

Then when I was about twelve the movie Twister was released. I fell in love with both the movie and tornadoes in general. There is a certain destructive beauty in these swirling columns of air, dust and debris.

We Got Cows
Twister — MOVIECLIPS.com

Since tornado season is starting I thought now would be a great time to post about these potentially devastating acts of nature.

Once again Climate Central has proven to be a wonderful resource. Here is a short video provided on the organization's webpage: Extreme Weather 101: Tornadoes | Climate Central. Unfortunately, I could not embed the video into this post and couldn't find it on YouTube. I encourage you to check it out though!

I also found an interesting article on Climate Central by Urooj Raja, a research analyst for the organization. Her article What the 2013 Tornado Season Has in Store for the U.S. provides a look into this coming year and helps to explain some of the recent tornado trends.

Two years ago, 2011, had a record number of storms and was very deadly, but then 2012 had much fewer, and less deadly, storms. It seems the drought suffered by states that see high tornado activity helped to suppress the formation of the twisters. Tornadoes spawn from storms, and storms need precipitation. High temperatures and drought means less moisture in the air, so fewer storms. Some areas appear to still have drought conditions, so it is possible that these areas will see decreased tornado activity this season as well.

She also introduces a tornado tracker in her article! How fun!! When you go to the website there is a map and a place to select a date. You can see tornadoes that were confirmed that day, or go back and look for past activity.

Raja brought up one other point that I thought was interesting. She stated that there is no consensus on whether or not climate change is affecting tornadoes. The thought is that since the increased temperatures leads to more moisture in the air that there will be more storms. But, Raja also says that wind shear, which is essential for tornadoes may decrease. So, while there may be more storms due to the moisture in the air, we may see less tornado formation because of the decreased wind shear.

It will be interesting to see what happens this year with tornadoes. We will definitely be coming back to this toward the end of the season to see what occurred and what the experts are now saying.

When Lightning Strikes the Vatican

There has been a lot of talk this week about the Vatican and the selection of the new pope. The conclave starts Tuesday, March 12th, and even though I am not Catholic, I will be curious to see what color smoke rises from the makeshift chimney. When I saw NBC News' video of a man putting a chimney up on a Vatican roof, I was reminded of that amazing lightning strike on the day Pope Benedict XVI told the world that he was resigning.

The photo was taken by professional French photographer, Filippo Monteforte. According to a report in USA Today, it was a stormy day and Monteforte thought that maybe lightning would strike, and if it did what a wonderful picture it would make. He waited for over two hours and witnessed two bolts of lightning strike St. Peter's Basilica.

There was some speculation that, perhaps, the photo was a fake. Jesse Ferrell, a weather and social media blogger on Accuweather.com, addressed this doubt in his post, Did Lightning Really Strike Vatican After Pope's Resignation?  

According to his blog post, Ferrell believes the photo is real. Some people expressed doubts because you can't see a reflection of light in the dome or on the wet street below. He explains that when lightning strikes it sends the current through the bolt dozens of times. The first number of times are too bright to capture on film. The last few times, however, aren't as strong or as bright. so that is when the bolt can be successfully photographed. At that stage the bolt has only "minimal reflection on nearby surfaces".

There was also the video that was taken and aired on BBC, thus giving the photograph more credibility. The video can be found on Youtube, was played in numerous news reports, and Ferrell also included it in his blog post.

Lightning is not a rare occurrence. In fact, National Geographic reports that lightning strikes the Earth more than a hundred times every second! Also, the common saying that "lightning doesn't strike twice" isn't true. Lightning doesn't keep track of where it has or hasn't been, all that it cares about is reaching the ground. Tall buildings, structures, and trees are very enticing. You never want to be the tallest object during a storm! You also don't want to take cover under the tallest object. Yes, that lone tree in the middle of the field may help keep you dry, but it is also the quickest route to the ground for lightning. Monteforte, the photographer, took a risk standing outside in the storm to get his now historic photograph.

St. Peters Basilica isn't the only building to be struck by lightning. 7 Most Incredible Skyscrapers Being Struck by Lightning offers more amazing pictures. I could not find other occurrences of the Basilica being struck by lightning, but that doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't happened before. Lightning striking on a random Wednesday wouldn't be much cause for alarm or speculation. Lightning striking the day the pope resigns... well, that will get people talking.

Adapting To Climate Change

When I was writing and researching my previous post on what we can do to reduce climate change I saw an article that led to writing this post.

Lee Dye wrote an article for ABC News that made me realize that it might be time to start figuring out how we are going to adapt to climate change, since it is here now, and we may not be able to stop it. The article, It May Be Too Late to Stop Global Warming, explains that trying to stop the emission of greenhouses gases in any meaningful way is just not going to stop climate change completely. It does say that we should try the best we can, because even if we can't stop it, we can at least lessen some of the effects. Then when I saw that the EPA has a page dedicated to adapting to climate change, I realized it is something we should discuss.

The EPA page breaks it down by region: midwest, northeast, etc, or by sector: agriculture, coasts, ecosystems, etc. In general, each region will have trouble with high temperatures and either drought or flooding, and coastlines will experience erosion and loss of beaches. I urge you to go to the EPA website and get more details about the area where you live. Below are quick predictions for the sectors.

AGRICULTURE: Crops may be damaged by the extreme heat, floods, and drought. Crops not affected by those factors may actually grow faster due to the higher levels of carbon dioxide and to moderate heat increases in some areas.  If you work in agriculture, or just want more information, please go to this page to learn more.

COASTS: There may be an increase in coastal flooding, erosion, and pollution.  Marine life will be negatively affected by the warmer temperatures and increased acidity.  Storms will occur more often, be more intense, and have more precipitation.  If you live, or work, in a coastal area please check out this page to learn more.

ECOSYSTEMS: Plants and animals everywhere are going to be affected by the change in the climate.  Some will handle it better than others. Species living in the arctic and in the mountains will be hit hardest as they tend to be the most sensitive. If you work with wildlife, or are a nature-lover, please click here for more information.

ENERGY: We will start to see people using more energy in the summer to cool houses and less energy in the winter to heat them.  We may see more power outages due to the rising sea level, and the more frequent and intense storms. Go to this page for more information.

FORESTS: Increased carbon dioxide can lead to increased growth in some areas, but negative effects where there will be increased drought.  Drought and increased temperature will lead to worse and more frequent forest fires.  We may also see more outbreaks of devastating insect activity.  If you work in the forest industry, or live in a forested area please go here for more information.

HUMAN HEALTH: The hotter the temperature means the more ozone that is in the air, which makes it harder to breathe for people with asthma and other respiratory issues.  There will also be an increase in heat-related health issues like heat stroke and dehydration.  Floods, droughts, and storms can also negatively impact health and safety, and there will be an increase in the frequency and severity of all those events.  If you work in the health industry, or are concerned about future health risks, you can find more information here.

INTERNATIONAL: Developing countries will suffer more from the changes than developed countries.  Changes in other countries could actually have an impact on the US's national security, and the security of other nations.  If you are concerned about the effects world-wide or the impact on national security, more information can be found here.

SOCIETY: People who will be affected the most will be the young, elderly, sick, poor, and those living in vulnerable areas.  Cities will affected more than rural areas, as cities absorb more heat and can feel the effects of storms more strongly. I encourage EVERYONE to read more on this topic.

TRANSPORTATION: The increased temperature, severe storms, flooding and storm surge will damage roadways, bridges, subways, railways, and other means of transportation. This is another topic that everyone could benefit from reading more.

WATER RESOURCES: Some areas, like Nevada, will experience an increase in water demand but a shortage in supply.  Other areas, like New York City, will have issues with flooding and the rise in sea level.  The quality of water may decrease as salt water intrudes upon fresh water. For more information on the water resources where you live, click here.

There are many changes coming our way. How severe they will be depends on where you live, and what we have done to mitigate climate change. By lessening greenhouses gases we can make climate change less severe. Right now we need to educate ourselves, so that we can prepare, survive, and hopefully, be part of the solution. Thank you to the US Environmental Protection Agency, and to similar agencies around the world, for providing information and working to protect us and the world we live in.

What We Can Do About Climate Change

Climate Change 

We have discussed causes, effects, and arguments. Now lets take a look at what we can do to limit greenhouses gases and how we may need to start preparing and adapting. 

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The EPA is a great source for information about climate change, and a source I use frequently.  The site discusses what is being done, like the Clean Air Act, how we may have to adapt to the change, and things  we can do to limit greenhouse gases.  Check out more information on the Clean Air Act .  You can also read up on the steps the EPA is taking.

What We Can Do To Slow Down Climate Change

• Find five lights that you use the most in your home and change them to Energy Star light bulbs.  These bulbs save energy, thus saving the environment and your money! Energy Star has other products as well, like air conditioners, refrigerators, and windows! Check here to find these products near you!
• Make sure your home is properly sealed and insulated. Heat in the winter, and air conditioning in the summer; all that energy and money you spend making your house comfortable could be escaping through unsealed windows or poor insulation.  "Reduce air leaks and stop drafts by using caulk, weather stripping, and insulation to seal your home's envelope and add more insulation to your attic to block out heat and cold".
• Remember your 3 R's? Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. This wasn't just for when we were kids! We should still be trying to reduce the amount we are using, try to reuse whatever we can, and ALWAYS recycle whenever possible!  This may be the easiest of all the these suggestions, so give it a try!
• Another one we were told often as children: don't waste water! I always thought that was silly; there is plenty of water! Well, turns out its not so much about wasting the water, it's about wasting the energy it took to treat that water, heat it, and then pump it into the shower, bath, sink, etc. So don't let the water run, and consider buying Water Sense products.
• Try composting! You can compost food and yard waste, such as leaves and grass clippings. Check out the EPA's GreenScapes program to help you make the most of composting! If you are really brave, I once knew a guy with a composting toilet!
• There are also steps you can take at the office, on the road, and at school!

I know it is so tempting to say, "what's the point? I am only one person, we are only one household, we can't possibly make a difference".  I sometimes find myself saying that as well. Change has to start somewhere. Why not start with you? You could even start your own blog about it! Spread the word, help your neighbors make the change. Eventually, it could spread through your community. So, what are you waiting for? Pick one of those suggestions above and get started!

Check out my next post for information on adapting to climate change.