With the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, we’re all aware of how many lives can be saved when there is early warning of an impending natural disaster. Unfortunately for those living in tornado alley early warnings don’t always occur. In 2009 Vortex2 was launched in an effort to understand tornadoes. Tornado Alley chronicles those efforts from 2009 - 2010. It also follows Sean Casey of the Discovery Channel Storm Chasers series in his effort to intercept and film the perfect tornado. Tornado Alley premieres at the Museum of Science on March 18 and will be playing through April 15. The Museum of Science will be the only venue showing this movie in New England.
Tornado Alley is a unique opportunity to experience storm chasing in the safety of a comfortable chair. While the adrenalin rush isn't the same, you'll come away with a great respect for Mother Nature, Sean Casey and his Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV), and Karen Kosiba and the rest of the Vortex2 team.
Currently tornado warnings only give residents of the affected areas on average a 13 minute warning. Of all the warnings given, there is a 70% false alarm rate. The film follows the Vortex2 team as it tracks and surrounds storms in vehicles outfitted with Doppler on Wheels in an attempt to plant cutting edge equipment in the path of a tornado so that storm data can be collected. Their efforts are hampered by their inability to determine which storms will turn into tornadoes and by storms raining baseball sized hail stones down on them. By the end of the movie they were able to position some equipment in the path of a tornado and collect data from it. At the preview Karen Kosiba talked about spending the past couple of years analyzing the data, and being close to publishing her findings. She also talked about the volume of data collected and the need to continue studying it to find answers so that its easier to determine which storms will turn into tornadoes and to give residents in their path earlier more accurate warnings.
Although dangerous, the Vortex2 team's efforts were a little less so than Sean Casey's. The Vortex2 team's goal was to plant their equipment in the path of an oncoming storm and then get out of the way. Because they were driving in everyday vehicles, they faced the challenges that everyone in the area faced driving in horrendous storms and pulled to the side of the road when visibility made it impossible to continue. Sean Casey's goal of intercepting and filming the perfect tornado meant driving right into it. To accomplish this he built an 8 ton armored vehicle known as TIV. TIV was also outfitted with an IMAX camera and weather instruments that collected additional storm data. The movie follows Sean and his crew as they test TIV to make sure its storm worthy, and travel the Midwest during eight tornado seasons in the hope of finding and filming the perfect tornado.
More Info:
Tornado Alley - Movie Website
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