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This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture.

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The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations but not necessarily

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the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.

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The last cool air of winter collides with the warm moist air of spring,

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high above the Central United States.

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Then suddenly terror.

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Smashing and twisting its way across the land with winds in excess of 200 miles per hour,

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a tornado strikes.

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In all of nature's fury, there is no windstorm as great or as deadly as the killer tornado.

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Although the spring clouds of the Midwest, there's a richness of life.

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Cities and farms bask in the warming sun.

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People enjoy their traditions and diversions.

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But always present is a particular fear.

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At any moment, tranquility can change to chaos.

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Contentment to misery.

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This is the tornado season.

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And these people live in tornado alley.

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Statistics say that a city within a tornado area will be hit only once in every 250 years.

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Yet Oklahoma City has been struck 32 times since 1892 and Kodell, Kansas, three years

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in a row on the exact same date.

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In 1974, 148 tornadoes killed 300 people and injured 6,000 more across 13 states all in

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the same day.

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Damage totalled 600 million.

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Tornadoes attack the land with circular winds that topple structures and send bits of metal

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and wood through the air with lethal velocity.

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It is not unusual for steel to be pierced by a fragment of wood or victims to vanish

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forever.

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The force within a tornado is equal to all the energy in the United States running full

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power for five minutes.

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Stories of a recent tornado in Holton, Kansas comment on their experience with the twister.

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Everybody respects them, I believe.

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I know I sure do.

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You just never can tell what they will do and where they will hit.

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I know these tornadoes here, they hit and they bounce up and they come back down just

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like river balls.

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You just know where they're going to hit next.

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Pretty much that they really clear them, but yet they keep an eye on them.

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The tornadoes come and you can see it four or five miles away and they will keep an eye

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on it instead of going to the basement where they should go.

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The worst disaster we had here was in the trailer, mobile home, and there was four people in

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it.

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When the tornado hit it, apparently they were not warned.

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The trailer is set right up yonder and as you can see it was carried down here and the

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frame sets over here and it just looked like it picked it up and blew it up.

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They found a woman, a little girl approximately around a quarter of a mile from the scene.

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The father of the little girl, he died long in the night that same evening.

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To millions of people, tornadoes are a frighteningly real part of everyday life.

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Each year the United States suffers damage in the millions.

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The value of the lives lost is of course incalculable.

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The tornado is the fiercest of all storms.

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Unlike the hurricane, it can unleash its fury with virtually no warning, bursting forth

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from the storm in an instant to ravage the earth for seconds or as long as three hours.

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Hoping to increase the crucial warning time the public needs to avoid tragedy, a counter-offensive

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is being waged by a dedicated group of men and women who are probing this mysterious and

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lethal phenomenon.

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Well, what I've prepared here is a sketch of an actual thunderstorm.

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It's a vertical cross-section and the red arrows here indicate the major updraft within

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the storm and the blue indicates the down...

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Men such as Dr. Ernest Agee and his associates at Purdue University hope to answer the most

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basic question of all, what makes a tornado behave the way it does?

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Utilizing a tornado simulator, they seek clues to the cause of the devastating winds that

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form the tornado funnel.

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Although there is no one answer, most scientists acknowledge that it is the interaction of

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warm and cold fronts that produce the thunderstorm.

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Just what starts the clouds violently rotating is still not fully known.

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It could be a function of the earth's rotation or some internal phenomenon within the storm

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itself.

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Observing the effects of a simulated tornado on this model city provides graphic evidence

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of the power of the wind and its vacuum effect on buildings.

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The National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma lies in the heart of the nation's

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most active tornado area.

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Here meteorologists, technicians and students work toward eliminating the element of surprise

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in the tornado's attack.

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Locked in a race against death and destruction, they utilize radar, satellites, computers,

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and eye-witness observations to scan the skies throughout the year in order to anticipate

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disaster.

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By analyzing and interpreting data, they attempt to provide the crucial lead time that spells

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the difference between early warning and tragedy.

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During the tornado season, the day begins with interpretation of the satellite photo

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by meteorologist John Weaver.

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He must decide on the day's tornado outlook and advise the staff.

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The prognosis of today's photograph is not good and the storm track down begins.

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Upper vertical wind structure is conducive to tornado generation, winds increasing and

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varying with height.

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The maximum wind in this sounding, although it's not showing here, is 70 knots a lot.

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I do expect, as I say, there's a very high probability of tornado formation in any storms

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which fire up along this warm front north of the low.

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Twenty-two thousand miles in space, a satellite confirms the telltale signs of a towering

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thunderstorm, apparent to the tornado.

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Okay, we're going to watch the circulation up here.

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It's updating now.

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In a darkened room, a handful of men track and predict the storm, hoping to out-guess

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its deadly intention.

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Okay, I'd ought to call the weather service back and update them and call John.

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We got a forecast position on there.

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Nerve center for the chase.

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They watch with mounting interest.

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In minutes, the storm center issues an advisor.

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This just in.

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The National Weather Service has just issued a storm watch for the following areas of

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Kansas, Jackson, Cook County, Lernerville County.

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Miles away, the skies only hint at what is to follow.

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Attention, the violent storm has incited 15 miles to the south west.

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With the storm's approach, citizens are warned to take cover, possibly for their lives.

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Okay, that's going.

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It's already going up.

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Moving against time, an intercept chase team heads out to find the storm system and document

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the tornado's formation without becoming victims themselves.

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Led by meteorologist Bob Davies-Jones, students Kelvin Drogemeier and Ken Carson spend their

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summer vacation heading straight toward danger.

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But adventure is not what spurs them on.

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It is knowing that they are part of a coordinated effort to save lives.

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We got two main missions.

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One is to get within close range of tornadoes and get a close range debris movie.

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We hope to be able to analyze the movie for trackable debris and get tornado wind speeds.

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Our other mission is to verify tornado signatures which are seen on the docks of radar.

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Okay, John, we'll take the algae action headwind.

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We'll scrabble the jet to cover it.

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Aerial observation and recording of the storm's activity is initiated using a specially equipped

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F-4 Phantom jet.

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Okay, John, we're just turning on the I-35 just outside the lab.

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We're going ahead south on Highway 76.

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Flying near the speed of sound, the pursuit plane penetrates the storm system.

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Timelapse started at 1200 CFT.

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Setting up near the storm's edge, the chase team focuses on the most promising area for tornado formation.

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We'll be time-lapse-ing in one frame per second.

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Bob's camera records nuances of cloud activity hidden to the naked eye.

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You want this one frame per second?

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Yeah.

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I have a little trouble with the contrast.

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I'll test with John at the lab two pretty soon.

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Okay.

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Nestle-suitor control, do you copy, John?

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Okay, John, I copy. What kind of sky cover do you have?

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Okay, presently we've got a serious overcast.

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We are time-lapse, the final location in the cloud base appears to be a spinal cord north, the heading towards the north-east.

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Roger.

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I've just been up on the observation deck and there's a big new set of towers building into the southwest side of that old Renault.

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Okay, thank you. Thank you, Brad.

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Oh, you want to copy?

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Control, this is all you want to go ahead.

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John, we've got some towers that are growing pretty explosively to the northwest here.

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We're beginning to paint an echo on the scope and I wondered if you could go up and take a look at those storms.

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We're looking to the northwest. We have a extensive rain-free base. Towers are rapidly building.

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It's a little bit easy. We're having difficulty trying to de-examinate the features,

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but we are approaching it. Shouldn't you give a better indication later on?

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Okay, Roger. Stand by, John. I'm going to see what Doppler has on that.

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Okay, Don, we've got some good cyclonic shear at mid-levels, five kilometers high.

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The coordinates are 297 at 58 kilometers.

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Okay, thanks, Larry. You see that, Mike?

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Yeah, Don.

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John, we've got some cyclonic shear, 297 degrees, 58 kilometers.

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And if you have a new satellite picture, we'd like to see that, too.

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All right, thank you.

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Interpreting local cloud patterns, the chase team narrows in on the storm.

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For the experts, there's no doubt now a tornado is forming.

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As information comes in, the worst seems imminent.

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Okay, John, what do you see?

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Okay, presently, John, the towers are growing very rapidly.

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It appears to be rotating quite dramatically.

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The appearance from here, John, looks like a rotating atomic bomb.

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Yeah, that's only about 300 meters off the ground.

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So we're looking at it.

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200 miles per hour. Don is basically wrapping up.

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You've got to go to the tornado.

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Okay, Larry.

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Call Tinker.

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This is Don Hurgis in SSL, Norman.

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I'd like to issue you a tornado advisory for a storm that's 300 degrees at 20 nautical miles.

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I would put it right over the city.

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Only moments separate the tornado from a town never struck before.

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There it is again.

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Oh, that's a great one. We've got to lock it.

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Okay.

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Then why don't you update it again, Larry?

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Oh, wow.

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There it is.

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Oh, wow.

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Good building.

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How high off the ground is that, Larry?

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Oh, this is right down the deck.

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I hope those two will take cover.

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Hey, James, control. This is OU1.

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Go ahead, OU1.

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Hi, Roger, John. We have debris, tornado on the ground just to our southwest.

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We are moving eastward very rapidly, and we'll have to get photographs and moving over.

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Don, 1715, chase the tornado.

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Chase the tornado. 330 degrees, 48 kilometers.

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We have enough data on the ground.

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Yeah, just about where we got it.

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They say County Line Road, Northwest Highway, has been a lot of damage, houses destroyed.

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For some, being lucky means the storm missed them.

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For former Dean Stouse, it means being alive and able to rebuild.

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Yeah, we lost cows and calves and sows and pigs, and we've still got some sows missing.

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They haven't come back.

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But there could have been a lot more kills than what it actually was for all the debris and tin.

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There's a lot of tin flying around, and just like here, there was 41 fat cattle ready to be shipped Thursday.

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And this was Friday, the next afternoon, and we found every one of them and no broken legs or anything like that.

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And I don't know how they got out of it.

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You can just see that stuff's just pounded right in the ground and they got away.

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Dean's wife, Karen, was alone in the cellar with her infant when the tornado struck.

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I could hear things breaking, but I had no conception of the wind or anything because I was singing lullabies as I was feeding my son his food.

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And I didn't know the roof was off or the windows were out until I opened the door to the basement and see the sky.

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And usually there's two flight of stairs going up to the attic, and they weren't there.

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Until now, you know, he hadn't been actually in contact.

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We helped back when there was tornadoes south of here in the Pica and Meriden area, Silver Lake, when I was these boys' size.

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And, you know, I just never was personally involved before, but I am now.

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I guess it frustrates me so much that people are primarily concerned with the house, and the house can be rebuilt with income.

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But if we don't get the farm going, we don't have any income.

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But had it not been for Advanced Warning, Karen Staus and her baby might have been added to this year's list of fatalities.

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A list that is diminishing because of the dedication and skill of the men and women of the National Severe Stones Laboratory.

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It has been estimated that at any given moment there are 1,800 thunderstorms in the atmosphere above us, each of which could produce a devastating tornado.

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Despite all the advances in the science of meteorology, the tornado remains perhaps the most challenging weather event of all.

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To date, we have no way to stop the tornado. We can only try to cope with it.

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Can we expect someday to be able to modify or control this unique force of nature?

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Dr. Edwin Kessler, Director of the National Severe Storms Laboratory.

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We might turn heavy rains into moderate rains over a wide area. That would be very nice for agriculture.

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We would reduce erosion, and we would have a better supply of water power, for example, a more regular supply.

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But I'd like to emphasize that this is really very speculative at this time, and I would offer a comment that because of the really astonishing advances of the recent decades in areas of science and technology,

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particularly in America, we've tended to look to a science and technology for the answer to many problems for which science and technology are not well suited.

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The best thing that we can do about the tornado is to be intelligent about it.

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Heat the warnings, observe the clouds, so that you guide yourself intelligently in this marvelous atmosphere that God has provided for us.

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Coming up next, in search of continues with a probe into the causes and consequences of tidal waves, then agents take on a white supremacist hate group on FBI The Untold Stories.

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And later tonight, History's Greatest Blunders continues with the failures of the gigantic airliner Spruce Goose and the overhyped DeLorean car.

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Nine Eastern, ten Pacific, here on the History Channel.