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since I was a kid I've always been

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interested in storms as an engineer I

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try to understand how things work so I

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actually built and designed a device to

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measure the weather basically on the

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inside of a tornado the United States on

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average gets about 1200 tornadoes per

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year and the reason is is because of its

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unique geographic location

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we got the Gulf of Mexico off to the

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south and the storm systems as they pass

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through draw this Gulf moisture as water

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vapor it comes right up through the

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Midwest and springtime generally

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reflects it very what we call a very

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active jet stream and it brings us very

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powerful winds that just comes right

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across the Midwest that in combination

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allows these big storm systems to

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develop and of course wind shear is a

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very powerful ingredient for tornadoes

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the ingredients for a tornado obviously

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are quite complex but some of the basics

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are you don't have to have moisture you

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have to have lift and then the most

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other most important ingredient is what

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they call wind shear and shear creates

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these big horizontal rolls in the

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atmosphere and then when a thunderstorm

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forms underneath it actually tip sees

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these horizontal rolls in the vertical

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position to where a thunderstorm forms

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over them you have the whole

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thunderstorm rotating those final

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processes are what we're trying to study

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you know what's bringing the rotation

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finally all the way to the ground and

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that's really one of the biggest

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mysteries of tornado formation you know

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it's very difficult to forecast where 28

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it's gonna be when we're actually in the

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field waiting for thunderstorms to

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develop we use what they call visible

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satellite imagery this is basically a

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picture from space showing the best

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areas what we call instability and

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that's how and where we are able to

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target these storms that are developing

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ground-based radar can't even see these

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storms develop but satellite can

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satellites also detect what we call

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bound

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thunderstorms become the focus of new

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thunderstorms during the day and

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actually enhance the tornado potential

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visible satellite technology allows us

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to identify this which otherwise would

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be going totally unnoticed and

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undetected one of the biggest things

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that I would love to see in future

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satellite technology is the ability to

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actually see lightning within the cloud

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tops all the vertical motions so forth

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greatly enhances its ability to create

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lightning this lightning mapping will

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actually show frequency if the storm is

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becoming severe the lightning frequency

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increases and thus be able to do an

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early detection of whether or not that

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storm is severe or not if we knew more

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about tornado Genesis and structure and

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we're able to stretch that warning out

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to 20 or 25 minutes right now the

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average time is about 15 minutes or so

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that gives people more time to prepare

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and seek shelter without the ghost

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satellite we would be back in the dark

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ages of the mid to early 60's these

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ghost satellites are responsible in my