What Stands in a Storm Read Online Free PDF Page A

small tornado or two. But large and violent twisters are rare when thunderstorms march in a line. The individual storm cells in a squall line often compete and interfere with one another, throwing off the recipe for supercell tornadoes. But by midnight, the thunderstorms had begun dropping tornadoes on Mississippi. Around 1:00 a.m., going against type, Jason called a director and told him to meet him at the station. By 3:00 a.m., he was standing in front of the green screen and talking into the camera.
    Going on air during a severe weather event is a two-meteorologist job. One monitors the radar behind the scenes while the other performs between the camera and the green screen, connecting with the audience. There is a lot of information to take in, and one look at a weatherman’s laptop screen, jammed with maps and chat rooms and camera feeds, is enough to make an average head explode. The screen displays two radars: one showing radial wind velocity; the other, precipitation. Five private chat sessions with National Weather Service offices scroll with internal messages and public warnings. Another chat room buzzes with Sky Watchers, amateurs trained to spot the harbingers of storms. A window shows live feeds from the SkyCams, which must be driven by remote control so that they point in the right direction. And now on Twitter and Facebook, viewers on the scene supply photos that can be useful—as well as ground observations that a seasoned pro knows better than to trust. To the untrained eye, a funnel-shaped cloud can resemble the vortex of a tornado. And some tornadoes look like a thunderstorm sitting on the ground.
    Jason usually drove the radar, in the studio. But right now, he was flying solo on the weather desk, doing his best to cover both jobs, translating the gist of what he saw into the black eye of the camera. He asked two early morning anchors on the early shift to help him.
    â€œLook for power flashes, low-hanging clouds,” he told the anchors, “anything that looks weird.”
    At 4:16 a.m., while most Alabamians slept soundly and unaware, the first tornado reached into the dark of rural Alabama and filled the air with a lonely roar and the snapping of tall pines.

    Across town, lead meteorologist James Spann was startled awake by the loud bleating of his smartphone. It was just a few minutes before his regular alarm went off, as it did every weekday at 4:52 a.m., but the sound startled him, and he surfaced through a fog of surprise and alarm. His weather app was doing its job, waking him up with the day’s first warning. He pawed around on the nightstand for his phone, which lay next to the weather radio, glanced at the radar, and shot out of bed.
    Oh, Lord!
    Thunderstorms were developing up and down the state, and the National Weather Service was already pumping out warnings in six counties. It took a minute for him to confirm he was not dreaming. In three decades of reading the patterns of the atmosphere, James had seen the weather unleash a Pandora’s box of maelstroms, but not like this one.
    â€œWhen it comes to thunderstorms,” his colleague Al Moller always said, “expect the unexpected.”
    These predawn storms had surprised him with both their timing and severity. Every single conventional forecasting method had failed him. In yesterday’s broadcast, he had warned emphatically about the potential for dangerous storms to rumble through the afternoon. But he had said nothing of a morning outbreak.
    James fought the queasy feeling that he had botched the forecast. He showered quickly and threw on the uniform he wears every day in front of the green screen: dress shirt, tie in any color but green, and dark trousers held up by suspenders. He stuffed his MacBook Pro in a bag, grabbed his jacket, and jumped into his silver Ford Explorer. The sky was black and the clouds hung hot and low. Stealing glances at the weather radar glowing on an iPad mounted to his console,