This article
was written by Dr. Marshall Shepherd for Forbes:
Like many of
you, I was relaxing on a quiet Sunday afternoon when I learned of the death of
actor Bill Paxton. He died of complications related to surgery according to
numerous reports. I fondly remember him from two of my favorite movies, Weird
Science and Apollo 13.
The movies that he appeared in read like a Hollywood
blockbuster highlight reel. As a meteorologist, the first movie that came to
mind is Twister. Twister was a hit movie but it probably has legendary status
with many weather enthusiasts and meteorologists. The movie probably change
meteorology and storm chasing as we know it.
The movie
chronicles Bill Harding, a storm chasing, weather researcher (Paxton's
character) and his interactions with meteorologist ex-wife (Jo), love interest
(Melissa), and a privately-funded meteorologist (Jonas). The team was trying to
deploy a research system called DOROTHY that would release small sensors into
the tornado environment for scientific research. It is a wild ride and an
instant classic.
While many
meteorologists like myself understood that there were many creative liberties
taken with the script, it was a movie. It is not a documentary. It is
entertainment. Eric Adler interviewed NOAA Storm Prediction Center
meteorologist Rich Thompson and National Weather Service webmaster (at that
time) Daphne Thompson in 1996. The real-life husband and wife storm chasers
noted several things in the article posted on the Cooperative Institute for
Mesoscale Meteorological Studies (CIMMS) website:
1. In a real
twister, air and debris whooshes in toward the tornado, not out, with debris,
18-wheel oil trucks, farm equipment, cows and houses being flung away. At the
least, the stars' hair should have been blowing forward, not back.
2. Lightning
and thunder? Check your physics books, Steven Spielberg. They don't flash and
crash at the same time. Light travels faster than sound, so lightning is seen
before thunder is heard unless a storm is di rectly overhead.
3. Yes,
tornadoes wander, alter their path and change in intensity, but they don't
skitter back and forth across roads like jittery rabbits, take sudden U-turns
or drop out of sunny and virtually windless skies. Storms just don't move east,
then west, then stop.
4. Chasers
don't check radar and whoop "Whooeee! We've got ourselves an F3!" as
the movie suggests.
Maybe item 4
does happen more these days if you have watched You Tube. Adler's piece also
noted that tornado intensity is assessed after the storm.
Focusing on
Hollywood interpretations overshadows the real influence of Twister. I reached
out to my friend and colleague Dr. Chuck Doswell, a highly-regarded mesoscale
meteorologist that has contributed greatly to our knowledge of severe storms
and flood-producing systems. He also runs a storm chasing enterprise called
Tempest Tours. He said,
Right after
I saw Twister for the first time I said that if it served to inspire people to
pursue storm science, it will have done some real good, and isn't just another
Hollywood version of fake reality. The science in Twister is simply awful, but
if it managed to inspire someone to become a real scientist, it isn't a total
loss.....And it has inspired several people to become real scientists!
The movie
certainly served that purpose. Weather Enthusiast Rob Bailey is Computer
Systems Administrator and a certified weather geek. He has a passion for
weather that is obvious on his Twitter feed. He shared with me,
Since I was
a kid before that movie, I was and always shall be a weather geek. After the
movie I was more interested in reading more on the studies of tornado
development and digging into looking at radar more than the storm reflectivity
itself but also velocities.
On the day
Paxton's death was announced, storm chasers and spotters aligned themselves to
produce a stunning tribute to him. University of Illinois's Dr. Jeff Frame
tweeted the image below, but he did not organize the tribute.
We also saw
explosive growth in enrollment in meteorology and atmospheric sciences
programs. University of Georgia Professor John Knox analyzed growth in the
meteorology field in recent decades and identifies a "Twister
Effect." The Twister Effect is likely apparent in the rise of storm
chasers too.
Twister's
influence is likely found in research and life-saving initiatives too.
Scientists have suggested that the movie changed public perception of tornadoes
and raised awareness. A 2016 article in The Oklahoman pointed out that NOAA
selected the University of Oklahoma as the home of the National Weather Center
a few years after the movie came out.
The movie
also highlights an aspect of storm chasing that is beyond the adrenaline rush
or "money" shot. The chasers in Twister were actually trying to
advance science. Scientists and engineers like the late Tim Samaras have always
been interested in probing near storm environment with probes and sensors.
Other scientists like Josh Wurman have leveraged mobile Doppler radar systems
to advance our knowledge of near-storm environments. Researchers at the University
of Colorado and the University of Nebraska are even using Unmanned Aircraft
Systems (drones) to probe tornadoes.
My former
NASA colleague Dr. John Manobianco has even been exploring, for years, the
possibility of DOROTHY-type dispensable observing systems. I remember when John
first shared this system with me, Twister was my first thought. The abstract
from Manobianco's recent American Meteorological Society presentations says,
GlobalSense
system features an ensemble of completely disposable, airborne probes,
mechanisms to deploy probes, and receiver platforms to gather data from probes.
The ultra-compact probes called environmental Motes (eMotes) will integrate
micro- and nanotechnology-based components to provide low cost, wireless
sensing capability and will function as passive drifters using no active
propulsion or flight
Some will
argue that real scientists pass unheralded but do not get the attention Paxton
will likely get. I would agree. Let's change that. The reality of our society
is that Paxton is a movie star whose character and movie were influential to
our field.
(Forbes)
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