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April 15, 2002 - Art Bell

02:47:51

Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell - Warren Faidley - Storm Chaser

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	Music.
	From the high desert in the great American Southwest.
	The very strange Great American Southwest.
	I bid you all good evening, good afternoon, good morning, wherever in the world you are listening to us at the moment.
	I'm Art Bell.
	The program is Coast to Coast AM is Worldwide.
	Great to be with you.
	Boy, what a story I have to tell you.
	Oh, my.
	We had quite a day today here in the desert.
	I'll tell you all about it in a moment.
	Welcome KTFS in Texarkana, Texas.
	All right, Texarkana.
	940 on the dial there, and the GM is Mike Simpson.
	Glad to have you on board the network as we continue to grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and grow.
	All right, I do have a serious story to tell you about.
	And I would like to, I'd like to add that for that purpose, I'm going to be holding the first-time caller line open for only people here in the Pahrump area, the Southern Nevada area, Um, in general, and that is area code 775-727-1222.
	So if everybody else would please not dial that number for a while here.
	That's the 727-1222 number only for the prerumpt southern Nevada area.
	Now, I'll briefly cover what's going on in the world, which is never too pretty, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
	said Monday that Israeli troops would press ahead with a campaign against Palestinian militants in Ramallah and Bethlehem despite U.S.
	pleas to get out.
	Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday embraced the idea of an international conference aimed at stopping Middle East violence and restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, sidestepping a clash with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who wants to exclude Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
	from any such conference.
	We're moving on. Well, here's an interesting one from Racine, Wisconsin Art.
	I can't believe the weather we're having here in southern Wisconsin.
	We didn't have a winter at all.
	It snowed twice this winter.
	A maximum accumulation that we normally get in say a month.
	Today, it hit 90 And as forecast for 90 tomorrow, too, all of my bulb plants are in bloom, which normally doesn't occur until May.
	What's even more odd is that I've lived here all my life, and as a kid, I remember bitter cold winters that lasted six months.
	But over the last ten years, our winters have gotten less severe.
	Our springs have come earlier now.
	We hardly ever see zero degrees anymore.
	This year, it only hit it one day.
	I would never have believed in global warming or climate change or whatever this drastic.
	But I can no longer deny that something is definitely changing.
	And rapidly.
	I certainly agree with that.
	Now let me tell you what happened here.
	Yesterday I began receiving weather reports indicating there was a giant pressure gradient difference developing here in the West.
	And we had very hot weather.
	We were touching 100 degrees during the day and only going down into the 80s at night.
	Right now, the temperature is 55.9 degrees.
	Now, we went down approximately 30 degrees in both daytime and nighttime temperature in a period of three hours.
	We were getting warnings yesterday that we were going to get winds here perhaps in excess gusting in excess of 60 miles per hour.
	You know a lot of times when you hear these warnings and it turns out to be 30 or 40 but not 60 today and we were very concerned so Ramona and myself went to the radio station yesterday afternoon and then again last night during George's program, and we tried to warn everybody.
	We told them what we saw coming, and said they had better batten down the hatches.
	Well, let me tell you.
	A beginning about mid-morning, and a beginning to get severe at about noon.
	In all the years I've lived in the desert, and we get big winds in the desert, you know, we're used to them.
	I have never seen anything like this.
	Now, I cannot be sure All I can tell you is I looked over at my Davis weather station.
	I was at KNYE, of course.
	Both Ramona and myself went down when this began, and I looked over.
	We were almost always in excess of 60 miles an hour.
	We were frequently in excess of 70 miles an hour, and it hit 84 miles per hour.
	Now, there is a significant amount of damage to our town.
	Quite a bit of damage.
	There are obviously fences down.
	Buildings have blown over.
	Several houses have self-destructed.
	They're nothing more than a sort of a small pieces matchbox right now.
	We really, really got slammed.
	It was a very frightening experience for all concerned.
	And what we did was go down to our local station, PNYE, And get on the air and begin talking with people, and we were blessed.
	So many areas of town lost power.
	We didn't, but one short moment.
	And we got on the air and began talking with local residents, taking reports of damage.
	It was so bad they didn't let the children out of school at the appointed time.
	Las Vegas also caught hell, but it's my understanding it wasn't quite as bad as what we got.
	McCarran International Airport was closed.
	The desert was a screaming mess, and all over town there are down power lines, there are down trees, and by the way, a lot of people have trees over their homes right now.
	You're going to want to get that taken care of rapidly, as there is more wind in the forecast for Wednesday.
	It was a very harrowing day.
	Now, it's kind of interesting, because I've got tonight's guest in the next hour.
	He is going to be a storm chaser of all things.
	Warren Fately is going to be here.
	He's a professional storm chaser, and we'll have a lot to talk about because I used to do that, but what we had today... Oh my God, what we had today was incredible.
	It was beyond all belief.
	I'm telling you, it was just... Any cars that were out got a new paint job, or at least will have one.
	They were sandblasted.
	Our neighbor, here at the house, our neighbor, not that we were at the house, we stayed at the radio station and dutifully talked to people.
	But when we got home, we discovered our neighbor's roof has a very large section of it gone.
	And he needs to be notified of that fact.
	So if you're out there, bud, you need to check in.
	A portion of your roof there at the top is missing, and not just tiles.
	Very special tiles.
	But down to where you can see the insulation, and that's an obvious danger, either for more wind or for any moisture.
	A lot of people in very serious trouble here.
	A lot of people lost a lot of possessions here in the desert today.
	It was awful.
	It was absolutely awful.
	And if you can think of 70 and 80 mile an hour winds, that went on for three solid Hours.
	To a lesser degree, for probably all day, until the sun finally went down.
	But all day long.
	And then for three hours, there was nothing but sheer terror.
	When you have 70 to 84 mile an hour winds, it's sheer terror.
	You have no idea what's coming down, or what's probably going to come down.
	So, I am going to restrict the first time caller line People in Pahrump or the Southern California area that experienced this today, there is no doubt our weather is in the midst of a serious change and it is going to become more violent and stranger very, very quickly.
	That would seem apparent.
	I think George had a guest last night on about a new ice age, the possibility of a new ice age.
	Well, that may be, or it may be global.
	You know, who knows?
	The only thing obvious out of it, while the scientists argue, is that there is a massive, massive change underway, and we got a taste of it here today.
	Whether the jet stream, of course, was over us or near us, it may have actually come down and touched down.
	Who knows?
	I have never in my life seen sustained winds like that here in the desert, and that would include about my short 15 years experience here in Pahrump, Nevada.
	Nothing like this has ever happened before, and I inquired of many, many local residents as I talked to them through the day.
	It's pretty scary if anybody had ever seen anything this bad before and uniformly they said absolutely not
	Well all right here we go And again, I want to remind my audience that I'm just holding this first-time caller line open for people in the local area who experienced what I just told you about.
	You just can't imagine the damage around the valley, down trees, down power lines, homes destroyed or very heavily damaged, others not as heavily damaged.
	It just sort of, it ranged.
	It was awful.
	Absolutely awful.
	On the first-time caller line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	John from Sandy Valley.
	John, Sandy Valley is just, I don't know, how many miles from Peru?
	I think we're about 20 miles south of you.
	About 20 miles south, right.
	Yeah, and I had my chain link fence ripped out with the poles bent completely over.
	Oh my god, you lost a chain link fence?
	Yeah.
	It's really strange, the poles bent, the cement held.
	Oh my gosh, that gives people an idea of how severe.
	Have you ever seen anything like this?
	Nothing like it.
	I've been here ten years and I was flabbergasted.
	I walked out my back window and saw my fence laying down.
	And it just went on and on and on.
	You didn't have anything to measure wind speed there, did you?
	No.
	I live out here at the airport in Sandy Valley.
	I'm sure somebody out here has.
	I'm sure.
	I clocked it.
	I saw it once at 84.
	I was so busy talking to prompt residents on the station that I didn't have time to constantly watch the wind speed, but I saw it once at 84.
	Yeah.
	I did want to mention to you, I wish K9 was a little stronger signal.
	How come I can't get you down here?
	You can't get us there, huh?
	Well, the reason is because, of course, you're in your own valley.
	A very, very serious valley, I might add.
	Well, that's the problem.
	But if you get an antenna, in fact, I've been told if you get a, you know, like a beam antenna, and you point it from there, or even, for that matter, parts of Las Vegas, you'll get us just fine.
	Yeah, I was wondering about one of them CC...
	Well, they've got a CC radio, not a CCN.
	Give it a try.
	You're in a locked-in valley, that's why.
	Thank you very much for the call, and take care.
	Incidentally, I think you're going to be real surprised about this.
	There's a new squid.
	I mean, this is a really big squid.
	I've got a link up on the website right now.
	It says, a new type of large squid reaching up to 23 feet, that's seven meters long, has been spotted in the deep waters of several ocean basins, including, rather according to a report published in the December 21st, 2001 issue of Journal of Science, the open ocean covers more than two-thirds of the Earth's surface, yet scientists know very little about its inhabitants.
	In fact, the squids were seen eight times within a few years at similar depths I'm the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic, the Indian, and Pacific Oceans.
	That indicates how little we must know about life in the Earth's largest ecosystem.
	Now, there are two videos available.
	There's one still photograph of this squid, so it's not as though we're telling you stories here.
	Go to my website, Artbell.com, Click on what's new.
	Go in the up direction instead of down.
	You'll see updated news and other websites.
	You click on that and then new giant deep sea squid.
	Click on that.
	And they've got some videos of it and still photographs and it's absolutely astounding.
	I mean this thing, this thing is an absolute monster.
	That's all you can say about it.
	It is a sea monster.
	So Uh, go take a look at a sea monster, uh, if you would like.
	I think you'll find it, uh, uh, just an amazing sight, uh, that that's in our ocean, and we had no idea that it, uh, that it was.
	Okay, um, let me, uh, clear that line, and, uh, let's go here for a second.
	Wildcard Line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	How you doing, Art?
	Uh, just fine, sir.
	Hey, uh, you know, I, I, I have to kind of disagree with you on the, um, on the, on the wind.
	I've only been out here about 15 years.
	Where are you?
	I'm in Las Vegas.
	Oh, you're in Las Vegas?
	Well, you see, Las Vegas didn't catch it quite as bad.
	Well, no, that's true.
	And I just want to say that, basically, when you get a lot of wind, you generally get a lot of it in the desert.
	And I know that since I've been here, I've had several occasions where the wind has blown study over 35 Miles an hour all day long.
	Yes, sir.
	I understand that.
	That's normal for the desert, but 84 miles an hour is not.
	Well, we've had it before since I've been here, so it's not that often, but my point tonight, what I was calling about, was if we want to utilize wind power, we shouldn't be doing it by simply putting a bunch of little turbines all over.
	The land, where the wind is, is up in the atmosphere, and if there's some of it down here occasionally, well, that's alright, but that's not going to do us any good.
	What can happen is that the, I appreciate the call, what can happen is that the jet stream can dip down, and if you'll look at the position of the jet stream a little earlier today, you'll see it was right over us.
	Did that contribute to it?
	I don't know.
	I'm not a meteorologist, and I really can't... Should I?
	Yes!
	You know, I might be able to answer it for all I know, but the jet stream was over us.
	Now, I know there was a giant pressure gradient difference, and obviously when you have a clash of that kind of cold and hot air, you're going to get serious trouble, and that's what we had here today was very, very serious trouble.
	First time caller line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hi, this is Danny and Promp.
	Promp, hi there.
	Hi.
	Tell them what it was like.
	Pretty bad.
	I don't know what happened, but something possessed me to walk across the street to the gas station.
	Oh, you're in the middle of that?
	Yeah.
	Oh my God.
	I looked both ways, I guess looking for headlights.
	I made it both ways.
	You made it both ways?
	Yeah.
	That was dangerous.
	We were to zero visibility.
	And when I say zero, I mean, as you were driving, you could not see the hood of your car.
	People don't understand how bad it can get.
	Yeah.
	I appreciate the call, sir.
	There's one here.
	Went out to a gas station in the middle of that, my God.
	And when I say zero visibility, in areas where you have snow, you can certainly get to zero visibility there.
	We were to zero visibility with dust.
	It probably just took the paint right off cars.
	First time color line, you're on the air alone.
	Hi, it's Jason Perreault.
	Hello, Jason.
	Tell them.
	Oh, man, that was bad.
	It was just as bad as I have ever seen, Jason.
	The fellow from Las Vegas said, well, I've seen it like that before.
	I sure haven't.
	Yeah, I've been living in the desert for a lot of years.
	I didn't see that.
	I lost a third of my roof shingles.
	Oh, no.
	Six trees.
	You lost six trees?
	Yeah, one of my trees landed on my SS Impala.
	On your Impala?
	Yeah, I got a classic Impala.
	I'm sorry to hear that.
	That wasn't wind, Art.
	I kind of came into the devil's breath.
	You know what I mean?
	We lost a tree, snapped right, a pine tree snapped right at the base, at the thickest part of the tree too.
	That was incredible.
	That wind was getting it.
	I was in my garage trying to get stuff, you know, to keep batting down the hatches, like I talked to you last night.
	Oh, so you heard our announcement, right?
	Yes, sir.
	Did you, in fact, batten down some of your hatches?
	I battened down as best I could, but I wasn't expecting that.
	Nobody could have expected that, sir.
	Something really happened.
	Either the jet stream dipped down, or we had the most severe pressure gradient difference that the world has ever seen.
	Yeah, that was...
	I couldn't see a hundred yards, man.
	I mean, that's how bad the sand was.
	I know.
	Well, at times driving, we couldn't see at all.
	In fact, we had to, on the way, we had to stop the car in the middle of the road simply because you couldn't even see your hood.
	Now... I believe it.
	Yeah.
	I appreciate the call.
	Okay, all right.
	Take care.
	From right here.
	It was that bad.
	You had to actually stop the car.
	I mean, once you can no longer see your hood, You can't see whether anybody's behind you, in front of you, coming toward you, or as for that matter you can't see, obviously you can't even see if you've got a shoulder on which to drive off on.
	So when you get to true zero visibility, the only thing you can really do is to come to a slow stop and hope to God that people behind you are doing the same thing.
	Because otherwise you're going to run into something.
	So, there's very little choice.
	When you actually get to complete zero visibility, there's doggone little choice.
	You do what you have to do, and that's kind of come to a crawl, right on the road, and pray.
	In fact, there was a kind of day around here where that's what you did for most of the day.
	You prayed.
	I'm Art Bell, and this is Coast to Coast AF.
	This raging at you from the high desert, which has been raging, would win today.
	Incredible!
	It is the night.
	My body's weak.
	I'm on the run.
	No time to sleep.
	I've got to rise.
	I'd like to win, to be free again And I've got such a long way to go
	So come on, where you going?
	Take me to the ballroom The End
	The End The End
	3... 2... 1...
	Once upon a time Once when you were mine
	I remember you smiling Reflected in your eyes
	I wonder where you are I wonder if you think about me
	Once upon a time You're the one I'll always dream of
	To recharge BELT in the Kingdom of Nigh From west of the Rockies dial 1-800-618-8255
	East of the Rockies 1-800-825-5033 First time callers may recharge at 1-775-727-1222
	Or use the wildcard line at 1-777-8255 757271295. To reach Art on the toll-free international line,
	call your AT&T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903. This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell
	on the Premier Radio Networks.
	Well, Art, we'll be back in a few moments. Hello, I'm Ramona Bell, bringing you a short
	report from our friends over at the Alamo Ranch who wanted to let us know that one of
	the ham operators here in town near Charleston Park in Warren lost half of their ham tower
	and also has a weather station that clocked a wind speed of 98 miles an hour.
	Now that is the scariest drive that I ever took leaving the house this afternoon, pretty close to noon, driving right over to the station and having to stop twice On our way over there because the sand and dust was so bad that it literally just blacked out the road around us.
	And the scary part was not the stopping.
	The scary part is the oncoming traffic that did not stop and decided that they were going to outrace the wind.
	So that's my small pet peeve right now.
	There were loose horses out and about.
	Thank you very much people who were out there trying to round them up for folks who might not have been home at the time.
	Or may not have been physically able to go on out and to round their animals up.
	So, you know, small bone to pick with you folks out there who wanted to outrace this storm.
	Next time you might not be so lucky.
	Well, perfect.
	Just what we want to hear tonight.
	The crack of thunder.
	Actually, there was none.
	These were straight line winds, folks.
	80, 90, maybe even as much as 90 miles an hour they measured.
	That was an interesting report.
	On the local line, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	Hi.
	I live on Lexus, just before you get to South Blagg.
	Here in Harrop, you mean?
	I mean off Blagg, just before you get to Gainborough Drive.
	Yes, ma'am.
	And I have a pole barn with a steel roof and a steel frame.
	And it took the entire thing up, the roof off the pole barn, and laid it over in the neighbor's yard.
	But in the process of doing so, it took the power lines down.
	Oh my God.
	So it must have made it pretty high in the sky.
	Well, I wasn't home when it happened.
	But I made my way home.
	Yeah, but I mean for all that stainless steel to get up high enough to take the power lines down.
	Oh yes.
	Oh my God.
	It must have.
	Where were you during the day in Las Vegas?
	Well, I had gone to the store and then when I came out I thought, my goodness, I don't want to drive home in this.
	So I went to the Nugget and had something to eat.
	Good for you.
	And then I waited and waited and I thought, I've got to get home to see what's going on.
	So I came home and I drove in my barn, what I use for a garage, and the top wasn't there.
	The top wasn't there?
	No.
	This is giving people a pretty good idea of what we went through today.
	This kind of damage is across the valley.
	I mean, it's like we got slammed with a Category 3 or 4 hurricane or something.
	Oh, it was terrible.
	It was absolutely terrible.
	And I could barely make my way home because it was so bad.
	No visibility.
	My little dog was so happy when I walked in.
	How long have you been here?
	Ten years.
	Have you ever seen one like this?
	Never.
	Me either.
	Not even close.
	Not even close.
	This was amazing.
	I drove over to my son's.
	He built a house, a two-story house, and he has also a garage with an apartment on top.
	He's living in the apartment while he's finishing the house.
	Oh my goodness, I wonder what happened over there.
	So after it calmed down, I drove over there and amazingly nothing happened at his house.
	Isn't that something?
	It really is because all the way there I was seeing debris all over and shingles off.
	And down power.
	I saw a lot of trees over houses, those poor people.
	Oh, I know.
	I tried to tell people get out, take pictures of damage, you know, for insurance and that kind of thing.
	Yeah, I'm going to do that tomorrow too.
	Which hopefully they have.
	All right, thank you very much.
	You take care.
	Bye-bye.
	That's Aaron Propp.
	When they actually start giving streets, you know, it's right here in town.
	They're listening to KNYE.
	And we are holding line open for people in town here at 727-1222.
	You're on the air at... I was saying KNYE all day.
	Hello, where are you, sir?
	Right now I'm in Colorado, but I did go through your storm.
	I beg your pardon?
	I did go through your storm.
	You went through it in Colorado?
	In Utah.
	In Utah.
	Well, yeah, I guess it would have passed through Utah, sir.
	Thank you.
	But we're holding this line open now for people right here in the immediate area.
	I would imagine the storm obviously had to pass points north in the last couple of days or days previous.
	But it didn't really become violent until it got here.
	And one of two things happened.
	Either the jet stream touched down on the ground.
	Or we had the pressure gradient difference of all time.
	It was unbelievable.
	Good morning.
	You're on the air.
	Hi.
	Good morning.
	Yes, sir.
	Turn your radio off, please.
	In the background, if you would.
	Okay.
	We have a delay system here.
	It'd be confusing.
	Where are you located?
	I'm at Prompt Valley.
	Okay.
	So you're right here in Prompt.
	Yeah.
	Prompt Valley Boulevard in Gainburg.
	Okay.
	You're going to have to shut your radio all the way off.
	I did.
	Okay.
	Good.
	Yeah, that was my neighbor that just called lost her pole barn.
	Oh, no.
	I lost part of the roof and then damaged the other part of the roof fence.
	But I'd just like to thank all those emergency guys out there, like the sheriffs and the fire department.
	Yeah, as a matter of fact, the fire chief called in this afternoon when we were covering the storm when it was occurring.
	Yeah, I've got a paramedic buddy over there in Las Vegas with Clark County Fire Department, and I know he was busy today.
	Incredible.
	It was incredible.
	Supposedly he had a big, big pileup, car pileup in Boulder City.
	I wouldn't be surprised at all.
	How long have you been in the area?
	I've been in southern Nevada 40 years.
	This is my fourth windstorm.
	I was in 100 mile an hour in I think it was 1964.
	Really?
	Yeah.
	Destroyed all the docks out at Lake Mead.
	Wow.
	I was in a storm in Laughlin, Nevada while we were building the Edison plant.
	Oh, yes.
	Had to sit in the boiler for about six hours.
	Well, so you've got to agree, this ranks right up there with them.
	Oh, yeah.
	This was incredible, and you're so helpless.
	Absolutely helpless, yeah.
	I tried to get outside and do a little batting down of the hatches, but it's too dangerous out there.
	Too dangerous by then, you're absolutely right.
	Thank you so much.
	Well, thank you for what you did today on the radio.
	You're very welcome.
	Bye-bye.
	Take care.
	Yeah, we just stood there.
	We sat there, you know.
	You've got to remember we had a 195-foot tower up above us, and so you can imagine we were giving that to some fairly serious thought.
	You're on the air, hi.
	Hi, I'm from Las Vegas.
	Las Vegas, yes ma'am.
	It was incredibly windy.
	I went into work, I take the bus, and the bus, you could feel the bus even blowing, and then friends of mine came in from work over the mountain and stuff.
	And they were just, they were worried about their cars.
	They were talking about how they were trying to depressurize their cars by opening the windows.
	That's right.
	That's right.
	Yes.
	It was nuts.
	You got grit in your teeth.
	It was just crazy.
	I still, I took a shower and I'm still picking grit out of my teeth and my eyes.
	And your hair.
	That was unbelievable.
	Yeah, it's amazing.
	It's amazing.
	Okay, well thank you very much.
	That's a taste, folks.
	Just giving you a little taste of what went on here today.
	The valley is strewn with things that just blew everywhere.
	I mean metal and wood and houses just turned into matchsticks and many of the mobile homes turned over, simply turned over, that kind of thing.
	It's awful.
	Good morning, you're on the air.
	Hey Art.
	Yes sir.
	I'm in Vegas.
	Las Vegas, yes sir.
	Yeah.
	I've been here about eight years and this is the worst I've ever seen.
	My wife works up in Indian Springs.
	Yeah, they sent her home today because they closed the whole town.
	Did they?
	Yeah, I understand they closed the mercury test site.
	Yeah, they closed it all down.
	She runs the whole recreation area up there and they sent all the kids home from school.
	And then out here in Vegas there was a truck that turned over with Yeah, it covered all.
	It was a first item out and long stories on all the local news.
	I really appreciate your call sir.
	anything like it. Yeah, it covered all. It was a first item out and long stories on all
	the local news. I really appreciate your call, sir. Thank you.
	It was bad in Las Vegas, but it was significantly worse here.
	I think our winds here were an easy 30 miles an hour better, and probably lessened a little as it went over the mountain.
	But I understand it was also very, very bad in Las Vegas.
	On the first time caller line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hey Art, this is Wild Bill in Las Vegas.
	Yes sir.
	I was in Salt Lake this afternoon, and they had exactly the same kind of storm.
	So it did come through Salt Lake?
	Yeah, 90 mile an hour winds, power poles blown down, trucks blown over, the whole bit.
	I'll tell you, my friend, we're going into a time when weather is, it's going to get more violent all the time.
	And I guess we just had our own local taste of it here in the West.
	One of the first times I ever heard you show was when Ed Dames was on there talking about the wind.
	How many years ago now?
	Well, you remember all those years ago, sir, what he said was, for the first time, the jet stream will begin to touch down.
	Yep.
	Well, I think it came down and touched us a bit.
	It sure hammered, didn't it?
	Yeah, thank you.
	You bet.
	Take care.
	Salt Lake.
	Yeah, that would make sense, as it roared south.
	But boy, I'll tell you, when it got off into the high desert, you know, when it started rising up into the high desert, which is where we are, it was unbelievable.
	On our local line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hello, Art.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	I know this is off the subject, but you remember the tree people you had sitting in the trees trying to save the trees?
	Well, of course, yes.
	Yes, did you hear yesterday in the news about... Yes, one of them fell 150 feet to... And they had just won their cause and they were fixing to go home and... That's what I heard.
	I just thought it ought to be mentioned.
	I appreciate your mentioning it.
	Yes, one of them fell 150 feet out of a tree.
	Uh, to, I believe, her demise.
	Uh, I read the story on it, I think, yesterday.
	Uh, very sad.
	And, uh, I guess they felt they had accomplished their goal.
	And, uh, and we're on the way home, and, you know, that happened.
	On our local line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Hold on, let me turn the radio down here.
	Yep, please.
	Hi there.
	Hi.
	I'm from Par- I'm from Pahrump.
	I happen to be in Los Angeles because my flight got diverted.
	Oh?
	Yeah, I was in Reno.
	That's right, they closed McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.
	Yeah, I was in Reno, and my wife had called, and I guess our front lawn is clean now, and our television antenna is down, so if I was at home, I couldn't hear you anyway.
	Well, we don't depend on TV.
	You'd hear us, sir, believe me.
	Well, no, my radio antenna is also up there.
	Oh.
	Yeah.
	So, just wanted to let you know, everybody was going nuts in the Reno Airport, because all the flights from Las Vegas, everybody was just sitting there.
	I got wise and said, can I go to Los Angeles instead?
	I'm sitting here in L.A.
	waiting for my wife to show up, and she's driving through the wind now.
	Good luck, sir.
	Thank you, sir.
	Take care.
	The wind is significantly down now, of course, from what it was.
	Probably the worst of it was from about noon to 3 o'clock Pacific time.
	On our first time caller line, you're on the air.
	Hello.
	Art, I live over here on Yonker Terrace.
	In Pahrump?
	Right.
	Okay.
	And it took about 20% of my roof.
	I have a tile roof and one thing really got me the dirt was blowing in and I got a brand new home and but it blew in around the door that's right 10 feet inside the room 10 feet inside we had about we have very tight building we had about five feet it found its way in somehow or another it was like It was incredible.
	Have you ever seen anything like this?
	No, I've never seen anything like this.
	I mean, it shook the house almost.
	It had to be around 100 miles an hour.
	There are people saying they clocked it at 98.
	I was at the station and I was watching it, but I just couldn't keep my eyes on it all the time.
	Talking to local people here, and so the best we could do is to just sort of glance over it, and I caught it at 84, but I'm thinking it might have been up around 98.
	Yeah, because we're, you know, we're way at the west end here of town, and it comes right off that mountain over there.
	Yeah, I know.
	Funnels right down.
	It's very dangerous.
	Well, this is the worst I've seen.
	Thank you.
	Okay.
	Take care.
	So we're undergoing some sort of change, a change in which not just the kind of weather you're hearing that I had here today, that we had here, but weather that's going to be different everywhere.
	In some places, perhaps, that are normally violent, it will not be as violent.
	That's also one possibility.
	As a matter of fact, we've got a storm chaser coming on.
	There was a report on CNN the other day that there were actually fewer tornadoes.
	Now, that means a big change.
	First-time caller line, you're on the air.
	Good morning.
	Yes, sir.
	Yeah, to give kind of a pretty good description of what we went through today.
	Are you here in Perth?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	I live on the north side, on the side of the hill up here, and my altitude here is approximately about 100 feet up from 160 from the flat.
	Right.
	And I'd look to the south, and it's just like a tsunami coming, you know.
	You mean a tsunami of dust?
	Yeah.
	Like a wall of dust?
	A wall of dust.
	I mean, like you said, the jet stream might have came down and it probably did because within 20 minutes the whole town was covered.
	I could see practically the whole town.
	And within 20 minutes I couldn't see nothing and a little short time after that I couldn't even see my fence out here.
	Oh, it was horrendous.
	It was terrible.
	Did you lose anything, or you said about half your roof tiles?
	No, I'm pretty lucky on that.
	I've heard about some winds we could get around here, but nothing like this and everything I got in mind.
	I built it to stay down.
	Oh, well, you built it, then it stayed down.
	Good for you.
	Luckily.
	All right, sir.
	Thank you.
	You bet.
	Take care.
	It would also depend on the individual area you were in, but you can imagine when such an event occurs, that's equivalent to a category, what would it be?
	Three or four hurricanes?
	Three at least, huh?
	First time calling a line, you're on the air.
	Hello?
	Hey, Art.
	Yes, sir.
	Charles.
	Where are you?
	I'm in Tacopa, Hot Springs.
	Right over the border from you, 32 miles southwest.
	Yes, sir.
	And I'm picking you up on KNYE.
	Way to go.
	Real clear, too.
	Yes, sir.
	And I want to thank you very much for that t-shirt you left on my truck.
	Oh, you're very welcome.
	Oh, you're very welcome.
	And you're right.
	This weather's getting real kind of pretty scary.
	Like off the charts, I would say.
	Yeah, I would say it was, too.
	I've never seen nothing like it.
	I've driven through the desert during the April and March months.
	And I've seen heavy winds.
	That's usually when the heavy winds are coming through the desert.
	That's right.
	But this wind today was not normal.
	No.
	It was way above it.
	Way above normal, yes.
	In fact, I'm in the park here and one of the trees was being uprooted right in front of our eyes.
	You watched it?
	Yeah, a 50 foot tree.
	And it was going to fall on this guy's trailer.
	So I got up on a tree with a saw and I cut off a couple of limbs.
	In the middle of all this?
	In the middle of all this.
	And I'll tell you what.
	That tree was shaking like you wouldn't believe.
	In fact, the park ranger came around and said, get off of that tree.
	That wasn't real.
	No, but either it was going to fall.
	Yeah, you do what you can, I guess.
	That was heroic.
	Very heroic of you.
	Not maybe too smart, but heroic.
	No, not too smart.
	I've never been too smart.
	But this tree, I swear, you could see it being uprooted two or three inches each time.
	And I thought it was going to go completely over.
	Oh, you mean, so in other words, it was just sort of like slowly coming up out of the ground?
	Right.
	Every time a gust would hit it, it would pick the tree up a few more inches off the ground.
	The gusts were about, I'd say, 10 to 15 miles faster than the average flow of the air.
	Oh, yeah.
	But this whole valley in here, you couldn't see the mountain range anywhere.
	And we're south of Death Valley about 50 miles, I guess.
	And this whole valley in here was just covered with dust.
	And like you say, it just about sandblasted my truck too.
	And did it?
	Yeah.
	Sorry to hear it.
	So you're how many miles away now?
	What, 32 miles southwest of you guys?
	32 miles southwest.
	And you're here at KNYA just fine there, huh?
	I'm here at KNYA.
	Very good, very good.
	Alright.
	Did you hear us doing the reports during this mess?
	No, I was too busy fighting this.
	I hear you.
	It was really that bad.
	Thank you very much.
	Okay.
	And take care.
	We just went down there and did reports through the whole thing.
	On to this 195 foot tower.
	And so it was a pretty harrowing day.
	Just giving you an idea.
	Local line, you're on the air.
	Hello?
	Yes, Bill.
	Salt Lake City?
	Yes, sir.
	We got the exact same thing here.
	So it came right through Salt Lake.
	What kind of damage up there?
	Giant power poles toppling over on apartment buildings.
	They had to evacuate apartment buildings, schools.
	Oh my gosh.
	Because of the bouncing power lines.
	Approximately, about what time did it come through, sir?
	This is about 2 o'clock.
	This afternoon?
	Right.
	Wow.
	It lasted about an hour.
	An hour?
	At least an hour, but the whole state just kept going south and they had newscasters throughout the state picking up as it came through.
	It was an incredible event.
	Well, now it's snowing.
	It was 83 degrees yesterday afternoon, now it's snowing.
	Are you kidding?
	No, it's snowing at the blizzard, actually.
	It's snowing pretty hard.
	Oh my God!
	I wonder if that's what's waiting for us or coming toward us now.
	Because as I mentioned, my immediate neighbor here, a fellow named Dave, part of his roof is gone.
	And I mean it's gone down to where you can see the insulation flapping up.
	And if it rains, that's not going to be good at all.
	Well, the city's dark.
	Most areas, there's no power.
	I appreciate your call, sir.
	Thank you.
	Alright, that's what happened today in the West, folks.
	We had one hell of a day.
	From the high desert, I'm Art Bell.
	Storm Chaser is coming up next.
	What a show that'll be.
	The eagle flies, rode his wings across autumn skies.
	Kissed the sun, touched the moon, but he left me much too soon.
	His ladybird, he left his ladybird.
	Lady Bird, come on down.
	I'm here waiting on the ground.
	Lady Bird, I'll treat you good.
	Ah, Lady Bird, I wish you would.
	You Lady Bird.
	Pretty lady bird Come on
	Lightning flash You are all the woman I needed
	And baby you know the way Know the way, know the way, know the way
	You can make this baby a junior A drama, a poet
	I'll give you all that I want You got the man in me, baby
	I'm the gold, he's the man.
	Take me, shake me, take me anywhere you want.
	As long as you love me, it's alright.
	Call Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye from west of the Rockies at 1-800-693-4111.
	1-800-825-5033. First time callers may reach out at 1-775-727-1222.
	And the wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295. To reach out on the toll free
	international line, call your AT&T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
	This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell from the Kingdom of Nine.
	Reading my Fast Blast, I'm seeing a path of destruction from Utah on down, and apparently it was really, really awful in Utah as well.
	Salt Lake City posted the lowest barometric pressure today.
	They had a 12-car pileup there.
	Winds, they claim, up to 100 and over 100 miles an hour.
	Incredible.
	Coming up, this is kind of an interesting segue.
	Warren Fadley is a photojournalist and cinematographer who specializes in extreme weather and natural disasters.
	I don't mean to laugh here.
	It's just what we went through.
	He is the only journalist storm chaser in the world who covers natural disasters as a full-time, year-round profession.
	Should have been here today.
	Over the last 15 years, Warren has traveled across thousands of miles, covering 15 states.
	His travels have been filled with moments of wonder, beauty, oftentimes shadowed by terrifying encounters and personal sacrifice.
	His breathtaking images of graphic and sometimes violent events are seen in books, advertisements, magazines, public safety publications like Life, National Geographic, Scientific American, Newsweek, Time, USA Today, and more.
	He's a frequent guest speaker at universities, corporate events, and safety educational functions.
	Often serves as a severe weather and disaster consultant on television and radio programs like MSNBC and CNN.
	Warren has appeared on many TV shows and in magazines including NOVA, PBS, the History Channel, Discovery, Weather Channel, CBS, NBC, ABC News, the BBC, oh my, it goes on and on, National Geographic Explorer, Eye to Eye, With Connie Chung, Maury Povich, Tom Snyder, Fox News, Reel TV, and the Emmy award-winning show Front Runners.
	He was recently a contestant on To Tell the Truth.
	Ha!
	No kidding.
	He is a consultant for the motion picture industry.
	He was one of the initial consultants for Twister.
	Oh yes, Twister.
	One of Warren's tornado images was used for movie poster and product line.
	Oh, really?
	His diverse film and video credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Puff Daddy, Paul McCartney, MTV Jurassic Park, Michael Jordan, a variety of television commercials for clients like NASCAR, the NFL, NBA, GMC, and Turner Broadcasting.
	and he will be up in a moment or not welcome to the program
	Well, thank you very much for having me.
	Where are you physically right now?
	Physically, I'm in Tucson, Arizona.
	Tucson, Arizona, huh?
	Well, tell me, did you hear about this mess in the west?
	Yes, I sure did.
	We had some of the winds down here, but certainly not the intensity that you guys had up there.
	Yeah, they were definitely clocking near 100 miles an hour now.
	As a storm chaser, can you give me some idea of what the hell happened to us today?
	Well, to put it as simple as you can, it was just a very intense Low pressure system.
	We have these all the time.
	So it was a pressure gradient then?
	Correct.
	The atmosphere is always trying to balance.
	You have the holes, which are low pressure, and you have the highs, which are the building pressure, if you look at it that way.
	This was just one of those holes in the atmosphere being rapidly filled with flowing air.
	On the surface, that translates into really high winds.
	Well, I tell you, we dived 30 degrees in an extremely short time.
	So that tells you How much energy was at battle, I guess is the way to put it?
	Yeah, the atmosphere is battling between the high and the low pressures all around the globe.
	And this one just happened to be centered over your neck of the woods.
	And as you said earlier, it's almost like the jet stream coming down.
	Technically, that's not what happens.
	But when you have winds that strong, you know, the jet stream usually runs between 80 and 200 miles per hour.
	So you guys were somewhere right in the middle.
	Yeah, yeah, definitely.
	Oh, gosh, the damage.
	Anyway, that's nothing new to you, I guess.
	You have been a storm chaser now for how long?
	Oh, going on almost 20 years.
	20 years.
	You're crazy.
	Blink of an eye.
	Absolutely crazy.
	I did the same thing, Warren.
	I was an amateur.
	I was stationed at Amarillo Air Force Base in Texas, up in the panhandle of Texas.
	That's in the middle of Tornado Alley.
	And I have a very good friend who has become a meteorologist.
	He has done so for a television station down in Lake Charles, Louisiana, named Lynn Woodlake.
	And Lynn and I used to take off from the Air Force Base and chase these thunderheads, these roll clouds.
	We chased a few right on up into Oklahoma in a stupid little Volkswagen, taking footage to sell to local TV stations.
	And how I came out of that alive, I have no idea.
	Now, I didn't go on to be the whether or not that my friend did, and obviously you've gone well beyond that, but what possesses a person to put themselves in the way of danger like this?
	I mean, severe, life-threatening type danger.
	Well, for me, it's a journalistic pursuit.
	It started off that way.
	I started out as a newspaper magazine journalist.
	And wanted to do something different.
	I mean, I had friends who specialized in news or fashion or sports, and I thought, well, you know, no one's doing weather.
	There's no photojournalist out shooting weather exclusively.
	So at the time, it was just really accidental.
	I fell into something that no one else was doing, and there was a vacuum for those kinds of images, and what at first I thought was going to be a serious hobby or a sideline turned into a full-time business.
	So, in other words, when you know that weather is going to hit, or is very likely to hit, what do you do?
	Start driving?
	Get on an airplane?
	In other words, how does a photojournalist interested in covering weather disasters, how does he get around?
	Well, that's a good question, because you almost have to be there with weather.
	In breaking news, you can go to a scene.
	You either get there too early or too late, or at the right time, and then you get the shot.
	With weather, it generally requires a little bit of pre-planning.
	For example, you were talking about Amarillo.
	Yes.
	In about two weeks, I take off and meet some of my Chase volunteers in Amarillo, and we'll chase from that location through the rest of the spring into mid or late June.
	There you go.
	Now, I heard an interesting stat on CNN the other day.
	They said that this year thus far, we have had not anywhere near the number of tornadoes that we would normally have, which indicates some kind of Change is going on, apparently.
	Absolutely.
	As a matter of fact, I think the count right now is at about 59.
	There may have been another one or two today, but the official count is 58.
	Usually this time of year, the preliminary count is somewhere around 150, maybe 200.
	So we're way behind.
	That's a big difference.
	Even more amazing is the fact that as of the 13th of April, This is the longest period we have gone in U.S.
	history without a tornado fatality.
	Oh, that's right.
	That's what I heard.
	That's what was on CNN.
	Oh, that's amazing.
	Yeah, 1961 was the last time and that went right up to April 12th.
	So, we've set a new record.
	Now, in your profession, do you have any guesses about whether Everywhere seems to be undergoing a really drastic change.
	People have noted, for example, this year that there doesn't seem to be a springtime.
	People have gone from winter straight into summer, and they're missing the seasonal change.
	It's getting radical.
	Very true, and as a matter of fact, if you look at some of the data from this year, this is a very unusual year.
	Not only the tornado counts down, but The number of very strong cold fronts that usually go down into the deep south and create these storms.
	We haven't had those this year.
	So the whole pattern has suddenly shifted into a very benign system.
	Of course, today, if you were in Las Vegas, you wouldn't be thinking that.
	That's right.
	But, you know, these weather patterns change over years.
	If you look, for example, at tree ring research, where they take the very old trees and cut them in half, of course, and look at the actual rings, they can tell. There are fluctuations
	every so many hundred years or even thousands of years if you look at some
	of the other fossilized data.
	So we go through these swings and we may be at this time in our history preparing to go through a major change.
	Yeah, I would say it's probably underway right now actually.
	I have no idea...
	They're upping the forecast for the number of hurricanes they think there's going to be.
	I know an El Nino is building quickly again in the Pacific, and so I guess we're really in for it, which means that business for you is probably going to be pretty interesting.
	Yeah, unfortunately, you know, when you have these lulls, when things slow down, I get a little bit nervous.
	That usually means that Mother Nature is going to find some kind of a way or method to make up for it.
	The quiet before the storm fits the situation.
	You officially call yourself a storm chaser, right?
	That's the title.
	Journalist.
	Storm Chasing Journalist.
	So in what way are you different from other chasers when you're out there?
	I recall we were simply, when I did it, we just wanted footage.
	Boy, when those tornadoes would begin to dip down or touch ground, we were on it with footage, probably ignoring life and limb.
	But Lynn, who's a meteorologist, knew which side of the storm to keep us on.
	He probably kept me alive, I'm sure.
	Yeah, it's quite dangerous in that part of the country when you have those supercell thunderstorms.
	But you have to remember, the majority of people that chase, believe it or not, this may shock some people, There's probably about two or three hundred hardcore people who chase just for the thrill of it, for the fun of it.
	Just for the thrill?
	The thrill of it.
	Now, some of these people have been doing it for years.
	As a matter of fact, the first real storm chasers, the first people that went out and did it for the enjoyment, began in the 1950s.
	And since Twister, the number of people have gone up into the hundreds.
	As a matter of fact, you can go out on any big storm day now on the plains, as you used to do in Amarillo, you would be shocked.
	You'll see hundreds of cars lining the road, traveling towards these storms.
	Really?
	In some places, it's gotten completely out of control.
	As a matter of fact, some people have suggested legislation.
	I can't defend myself because I think I probably did it.
	You know, I was a young airman, I was stupid, and I did it.
	I'm sure I did it for the thrill.
	You know, I'm sure that was a big part of the equation.
	We were taking footage and we were selling that, and that was good little business for a while, but frankly, it was a thrill.
	And I remember a movie, you remember the movie about the shark and the beach and all the rest of it?
	Yeah.
	It kind of reminds me of that, I suppose, in a way.
	Anyway, listen.
	What do you do when you go out?
	Who do you go out with?
	If you take off after one of those big cells where you believe that a tornado might develop, what do you take with you?
	How do you protect yourself?
	Have you ever been actually... Have you ever actually... I've got so many questions.
	I'm sorry.
	Have you ever actually, for example, had a tornado cross over you?
	I've had the winds that feed into a tornado, the forming tornado, hit the vehicle I was driving.
	Back in Kansas, in the early days of chasing, when I didn't know any better, I drove right into the area where the circulation actually begins.
	And you can tell because there's very strong wind shifts all of a sudden.
	And you notice things just aren't right.
	The winds, matter of fact, they'll go from one direction to the next direction without warning all of a sudden and then back the other way.
	That was a good indication that I was in the wrong place, but no, I've never actually been inside a tornado.
	You've seen classic footage, of course, of the people who are caught under the freeway bridge as a tornado passed directly above them or over them.
	That's incredible.
	What would have happened to the barometric pressure below these people?
	Would they have lost eardrums, that sort of thing?
	No, the pressure doesn't actually drop that much.
	From what they know, there's people who have been, and that's a great example, people who have been very close to tornadoes, and there's even instrumentation relatively close to some of the larger tornadoes.
	The pressure wouldn't drop enough to hurt you, but they found recently that underpasses are one of the, probably one of the least likely places you want to be During a tornado, because they actually channel the winds.
	So, the old theory about going to an underpass has changed in recent years, and it's not the best place to be.
	Although better than, I suppose, out on the flat.
	Well, you know, it depends.
	If you can find a small depression, you have to remember these winds, which can reach 318 miles per hour in an F5 tornado.
	are right above the surface.
	So, theoretically, if you can find a very small ditch, those winds will go right over you.
	The problem you have is debris.
	Debris flying within that zone of destruction can hit you, and there have been cases recently where people did the right thing.
	They did find a small ditch, they laid in the ditch, and debris ended up hitting them and killing them.
	So, the best advice is to be as far away from a tornado as you can be if you see one coming.
	Well, again, circling back to that famous shark movie I was talking about, I remember a scene In which a bunch of good old boys with beer and guns, they were overloading a boat and on their way out to kill that there shark, you know?
	And I remember a scene in which one of the officials was standing on the shore just shaking his head going, they're dead.
	You know, they're dead.
	And it's kind of like the hundreds of storm chasers that you're talking about take off out of Amarillo and other places during the really worst of it and chase these things.
	You really think there ought to be Some sort of legislation about this?
	Well, I don't really think there should be, but there are people who have proposed it because it is getting out of control.
	I mean, it's not unusual to see the roads lined with cars.
	I mean, literally lined as far as you can see.
	And you have to remember, there's a lot of people chasing who have a legitimate reason to be there.
	There are journalists, there are scientists, there are spotters who are out there to warn the community.
	So there's a lot of people who chase responsibly, and even the people who chase for fun.
	A lot of these guys and gals will report what they see.
	You know, they're not out there just to have fun.
	They actually will call the weather service and report something if they see it or if there's an accident, they'll stop and help.
	But there is a good old boy aspect to it.
	People just out there, let's go see a tornado, honey.
	Yeah, and you've got your locals now.
	And the weather stations in Tornado Alley do such a wonderful job now of covering I mean, they're on live when there's a storm.
	Listeners who have never been in the plains would be amazed.
	I mean, it's continuous live coverage with a radar that shows you right where the storm is.
	Well, a lot of people see that now, and they get in a car and they tear after the tornado.
	So you've not only got the chasers from other areas, you've got the local people going out to take a look.
	And you've even got the reports of radar, so if you're chasing, you know right where to go.
	Oh, absolutely.
	And people nowadays, of course, have satellites or televisions in their cars, so it's not hard Not hard to find a tornado nowadays.
	In other words, when you see a front developing, or something that's obviously going to produce a tornado, or very likely will, of an F4 or F5 variety, something really awful, in the Midwest, do you get on a plane and move, or what do you do?
	Well, there are systems occasionally.
	April 26, 1991, I believe that was the year when there was a major outbreak of tornadoes.
	You could tell days in advance.
	You could see the system coming.
	But most of the time with tornado chasing, you actually place yourself, as you know, as you used to do in Amarillo, in the best location.
	And from about the last week in April through about the second or third week in June, somewhere within that region, maybe Midland, Texas, all the way up to almost the Canadian border, there will be somewhat of a regular season.
	You may have to do quite a bit of traveling, but there will be tornadoes Oh yes.
	Every few days.
	So once you're there it's a matter of forecasting.
	It's a matter of going over the data.
	The trucks we use for chasing all have weather computers and cell phones and laptops.
	Oh really?
	Wonderful gadgets.
	So we're forecasting continuously from the morning when the first reports come out.
	We're looking at data throughout the whole day on our laptops and refine our chase area to one location.
	And of course once the storms go up it's more of a visual chase.
	Um, and it is so much of a data chase at that point.
	How many times have you come close to dying?
	Well, my first storm chase, believe it or not, at age 12, I got the wacky idea here in the desert to go out and, as you know there, when it rained, being flat out here, the little washes, as we call them, fill up with water, and I got the bright idea to go out and have my first storm chase.
	Well, unfortunately, I was part of the bat gateway, and I was swept Uh, down this flooded ravine.
	Um, went through the, you know, the near-death experience and a little movie.
	What movie there was at age 12 flashed before me.
	Oh, really?
	And... You actually had an NDE?
	Actually had that.
	And I can remember it to this day.
	And, of course, at 12 years old, there's not much, but it was a little significant, you know, fast-moving little movie that everyone talks about.
	And to this day, I can vividly remember it.
	I... Listen, hold on.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	This is all about storm chasing.
	Warren Pateley is my guest.
	I'm Art Bell.
	If I could turn the page, sometimes I see your face.
	Sometimes.
	But I couldn't find a way, so I'll grab a fork once a day to believe you.
	Tell me, tell me, tell me lies Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies Do rechart Bell in the Kingdom of Nye.
	From west of the Rockies, dial 1-800-618-8255.
	East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
	First-time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
	East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
	First time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222, or use the wildcard line at 1-775-727-1295.
	To rechart on the toll-free international line, call your AT&T operator and have them
	dial 800-893-0903.
	This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the Premier Radio Network.
	My guest is Warren Paley, who's one of the premier storm chasers in America, and we've got a lot of storms to chase in America.
	I just got a really interesting email.
	It says, Hi Art, my name is Frankie Mooney, and I'm probably slaughtering your name.
	I hope not, Frankie.
	He says, I play on Fox's Malcolm in the Middle, where I play Malcolm.
	My friend Haley turned me on to his show, and I think the show's really interesting.
	So interesting, every night I go to bed, I flip it on, listen the whole night while I'm asleep.
	Anyway, I heard your show on the Shadow People, and I still believe in them.
	Well, I just wanted to write and tell you I'm a big fan.
	Best wishes in the near future.
	That's Malcolm.
	Best wishes to you too, Malcolm.
	We're big fans of your show, and I suspect we've been watching you longer than you've been listening to us, but it's good to have you aboard.
	It'd be a lot of fun to interview you one night, if you would enjoy doing that.
	I'm sure we could fit in in our slot for Malcolm.
	That's an incredible show, and it deserves every single award that it's received, and boy, it's received a lot of them.
	All right, we'll get back to the weather and storm chasing, and there's just been a lot of weather here, so it's a grand topic for me this night.
	All right, Warren, this may be outside your immediate storm-chasing experience.
	However, it may relate to what we're talking about tonight.
	You know, we've got a situation in the world right now where, for example, the Larsen B ice shelf just collapsed and is in a million pieces right now and can be seen from satellite down at the Antarctic.
	At the North Pole, our Navy is talking about a new ocean.
	Because it's melting.
	No more subs being able to hide under the ice up there, because there won't be any ice in Alaska.
	The tundra is melting.
	I mean, there are some fairly significant changes going on in the world right now, and that's bound to affect your work.
	Absolutely, and over the course of the last 20 years, I've noticed changes.
	The best example, if you ask anyone here in the Southwest, in Tucson, About the summer monsoons, they'll tell you that in the last 10 to 15 years, the monsoons have changed.
	As a matter of fact, most of what I would consider my best lightning shots were accomplished 10 or 15 years ago when we had a large volume, a large number of summer thunderstorms.
	But in the last 10 or 15 years, that number has dropped off.
	We also have the same monsoons you do, and they just don't come up here anymore.
	Yeah, and that's all over the country.
	You can talk to people that have been in one area long enough to notice changes, some of them very subtle, changes in wildlife, the number of animals or amphibians in a certain area, all these things.
	Collectively, they do signal that something is changing.
	Something major is in the middle of a change, that's right.
	You really kind of work at the macro level.
	In other words, you look for a major event of some sort and you make your way to it for photographic and journalistic reasons.
	So your material appears, I guess, all over the place, huh?
	All over the world.
	I've been published in probably almost every news magazine.
	Certainly here in the United States and even in foreign countries.
	And it's amazing some of the things weather photos are used for.
	I've seen them used for everything from puzzles to on cigarette lighters, billboards, you name it.
	When you think about it, if you consciously think about it and pick up a magazine in your house right now, you'll probably find a stock type weather photo.
	So, you know, that's really true.
	I really hadn't thought a lot about that.
	So there's really a pretty good market for what you do.
	Oh, absolutely.
	And then you have, of course, the film and video end, which opens up a whole new area of interest.
	I have watched a couple of specials on tornadoes, and I've seen some of the F5 tornadoes, and it's hard to imagine anything on Earth more frightening than something of that magnitude.
	I take it you've seen them?
	I've seen one F5.
	Matter of fact, the first major tornado I ever encountered.
	April 26, 1991.
	Very close to it.
	As a matter of fact, I almost drove into it.
	Oh my God.
	It was so large, it really looked like a dust cloud.
	It looked like, or actually it looked more like a cloud of smoke.
	Where was this?
	This was near Red Rock, Oklahoma.
	As a matter of fact, the scientists were near the same tornado with portable Doppler.
	And they actually recorded the highest wind speed ever recorded of a storm, and that was, I believe, 318 miles per hour, which is the top range, top end of an F5.
	Actually, our atmosphere is only capable, they think, of supporting a certain wind speed under any condition.
	Isn't that true?
	Well, yeah.
	If you look at the physics, you know, and weather, one of the things that fascinates me is the physics involved.
	You know, if you're talking about a softball fight, a hellstone falling at 100 miles per hour, if you're talking about the The wind speed, the damage from tornadoes.
	There's no doubt that there have been tornadoes with winds that have exceeded the 318 range.
	Some of the damage is incredible.
	There's one wonderful story the old-timers in Nebraska like to tell about a tornado back, I believe it was in the 40s or 50s, that hit and carried away farm machinery that they've never found.
	They've never found?
	Never found.
	Which would mean to you Would mean to me that the wind speeds were so incredible that this machinery was deposited either somewhere where they can't find it or disintegrated or buried in the ground or just disintegrated.
	But you would think something of that substance.
	I mean, it would certainly take some of it out, but the major body of the thing would have to have more or less survived.
	And so Oh gosh, I wonder if that'll turn up in a desert in Africa somewhere.
	You never know, there may be some munchkin driving it around in the land of Oz right now.
	Yeah, there may be.
	Do you particularly chase, are tornadoes your specialty, or do you look at all kinds of weather and disasters?
	Well, I chase everything.
	I start in the winter with blizzards and work the way through the spring with tornadoes and then lightning in the desert southwest during the summer, late summer, and then of course hurricanes along May I ask you a question?
	I'm also, whether or not, and when there's a hurricane, for example, I watch CNN like a lot of other people.
	Do you know some of the CNN correspondents, by any chance?
	and go through everything and do the marketing.
	May I ask you a question?
	I'm also, whether or not, and when there's a hurricane, for example,
	I watch CNN like a lot of other people.
	And do you know some of the CNN correspondents?
	By any chance, I would think you brush up against them occasionally.
	I have run into them.
	You have run into him?
	On different stories.
	I've always wondered, you know, during a hurricane, the practice lately has been to take some poor correspondent who doesn't seem to have anything better to do that day, I guess, and say, listen, you're on an airplane, you're going down to where we think the eye of the hurricane is going to be, and here's this poor guy hanging on to a lamp pole, you know, with a camera pointed at him, and you wonder, man, he drew the shot strong.
	Well, I'll tell you what, most journalists, and I believe there's even old footage of Dan Rather recovering those storms, and I could be wrong, and I've heard him say once that he enjoyed covering those kind of storms.
	You know, there's just some attraction to weather.
	It's not, as in news, and one of the reasons I got out of news was there was all this violence, man against man.
	Now, of course, we have the terrorism.
	I didn't want to cover that because, to me, that was just something Completely out of control, and if you were killed by it, it would be, in my opinion, somewhat worthless in the scheme of things.
	While, on the other hand, nature, which is just so magnificent, no one has any control over.
	You know, you can't have a peace accord to end all the supercells in Texas tomorrow.
	They're going to happen.
	No, actually, there's another side of this, and a lot of people won't understand it, but I've not seen an F5, but I've seen plenty of tornadoes.
	The listeners aren't going to understand this because people have been killed, and a lot of houses have been destroyed, and towns have been destroyed.
	But there's something incredibly beautiful about that demonstration of nature.
	Beautiful is a dangerous word to use, but it's true, isn't it?
	Absolutely.
	To see a storm that's towering over three times the height of Mount Everest, Or close to it sometimes.
	Oh yeah.
	And just the colors and the power and the energy of that and the light.
	The way the light plays on these storms.
	It's just beautiful.
	And you know, people usually have two opinions.
	They're either terrified of storms, as a lot of people probably were in your area today, or they're fascinated.
	It seems that people's interest swings one way or the other.
	It's fascinating to listen to if you weren't in it.
	And perhaps when we look back on it, we can say, remember the storm of 2002?
	You know, then it'll be fascinating.
	In the middle of it today, it was simply downright frightening.
	And that's the thing about weather.
	You know, it's interesting, if you've noticed, whenever there's wind damage, and I'm not talking about today, but I'm talking about usually associated with a regular storm, precipitation involved, people will always insist, if there's any damage, that it was a tornado.
	And I've noticed this over the years, it's kind of fascinating.
	If there's any kind of wind damage, it's almost like people want it to be a tornado.
	They will insist, if you see them on the news or if you see them at the scene, they'll always say it was a tornado, even if the damage is all in one direction and it's obviously just Just straight-line wind damage.
	Right.
	It's amazing how people are so fascinated.
	They want to associate that damage with something like a tornado.
	Well, that's because their brains are trying to assimilate what could have done this, and they just don't believe anything other than something as violent as a tornado could have done that much damage.
	That's where it comes from.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	I understand you've got a chase truck, which you call Archangels.
	Why Archangels?
	Well, I really can't tell you.
	I figured that after all these years of chasing and surviving, I must have some kind of an angel.
	That's the best reasoning I can give you for the name.
	It's a custom-designed chase truck.
	It has just about everything you can imagine inside of it from a defibrillator in case we run across an accident or someone is struck by lightning, which is one of the biggest dangers when you're chasing.
	To computers, safety equipment has a full five-point harness system like NASCAR in it, and a roll cage.
	Aren't you afraid of the electromagnetic effects on all that electronic equipment out in the middle of cells?
	Well, the truck has been hit by lightning.
	It was hit last year in eastern Colorado.
	And the only thing it suffered was one of the driving lamps blew out.
	Wow.
	Scared the living heck out of me.
	I think I would much rather have a truck out there that was attracting the lightning with me in it and being relatively safe inside a vehicle, which you are, as opposed to being standing out there and having me be the biggest target.
	Well, that's true.
	And I suppose you're sitting on rubber.
	As long as you're on rubber, you're probably pretty much okay.
	Yeah, as long as the windows are up and you're not touching anything that's grounded to metal.
	You're safe.
	Now there have been, believe it or not, this is rather bizarre, but there have been instances where people were driving and the tires actually blew out and they lost control of the vehicle.
	Oh, it blew out the tires?
	It blew out the tires.
	That is relatively common when vehicles are hit by lightning, or I should say it's not uncommon.
	So all four tires could go at once?
	Well, all four, one or two.
	So it's something to keep in mind when you're driving in a heavy lightning cloud.
	In other words, that's actually the lightning then, finding its way to ground.
	Through the metal of your car and then ultimately through the rubber of the tire and just blown it up?
	Well probably through the rim somehow and probably I would imagine this is the gas probably superheats the air inside the tire somehow through the process.
	Either that or just goes straight through the rubber on its way to ground.
	That may be it too.
	Well actually believe it or not it usually just goes right through the frame.
	Again you get into this physics of storm chasing which absolutely fascinate me.
	We used to know when I would chase the storms out of Amarillo We'd watch those roll clouds and we would know when the conditions were just right.
	Can you feel it too?
	You can feel it when the conditions are right, but you know, it's very difficult on a big day to predict what will happen.
	And I remember a couple times last year when we had what was labeled as a moderate risk or a high risk.
	And that's a level that the Storm Prediction Center uses to grade, in layman's terms, the risk potential on a given day.
	And you can feel the energy.
	You know, after chasing this many years, I can tell by the way the sky looks in the morning.
	I can tell by the way the wind.
	Sometimes you can tell by the smells, the moisture in the air.
	You can occasionally smell the golf as it works its way up into Texas.
	Oh my.
	And those days, you know you're going to see something.
	You know there's a lot of energy in the air and something big is going to happen.
	Something big is going to happen.
	Now, there are many days when the atmosphere is capped off.
	And a lot of people would say, well, we had, you know, you had these giant winds today and these winds were blowing into the plains.
	Why didn't you have a lot of storms?
	And the answer is lack of moisture and also the upper atmosphere was warm.
	But you just never know.
	On any day, you may go out and see the most magnificent storm or the most magnificent tornado you can ever imagine.
	And you may see nothing.
	And that's one of the things I know attracts me and other people to chasing is that unknown.
	And as I told people before, it's like opening up a birthday present every day when you're out there.
	You just never know what you're going to find.
	And to me, that unknown is just so intriguing.
	You could never get it otherwise.
	A lot of people are asking, I get these fast blast computer messages while I'm on the air, and they're saying you keep using the term straight line winds.
	In my opinion, that's what we had here today was straight line winds approaching 100 miles an hour now.
	What does straight line mean versus, I guess obviously a tornado is a twister, it's in rotation, right?
	Correct.
	Straight line winds are just one direction.
	In other words, for example, when the air falls from a thunderstorm and hits the ground, it moves out laterally in one direction.
	With a tornado, you have circulation so the damage would be in a different type of pattern.
	Our researchers, or the people that go out and do damage surveys, will look for this.
	They'll go and look at the weather data and see which way the wind was blowing and see if the damage relates to that.
	Of course, today there was no question it was straight line winds.
	Alright.
	Here in the desert, we have these things called dust devils.
	And they look, for all the world, like miniature tornadoes.
	Now, what is the difference in the physics, if there is a difference, Between a dust devil and a tornado that's formed as a result of, or comes from, is mothered from a thunderstorm.
	Well, they're both rotating columns of air.
	They're both a type of vortices.
	The difference is a tornado is associated with a thunderstorm.
	Right.
	A dust devil is more of a thermal feature, which results from The thermals rising from the desert floor, usually associated with high temperatures and sometimes a little wind.
	They can approach some pretty good winds.
	They can.
	As a matter of fact, here in Tucson, back I believe in the 40s or 50s, a military cargo plane crashed after it flew into one.
	So they can be strong.
	I've heard winds that can reach 40, 50, maybe 60 miles per hour.
	I'm sure there's exceptions that have gone even higher than that.
	Yes, and you go from dead still to 60 miles an hour, boom, like that.
	And then the pace is over.
	Five zillion questions.
	The note about dust devils, we were talking earlier about my first chases after the flood.
	I chased.
	I then moved on to Dust Devil, so it was kind of interesting you brought that up.
	You moved on to Dust Devil?
	On my little, back then we called it a little spider bike.
	Oh, no kidding?
	And I borrowed a pair of welding goggles from a kid and wrapped myself up in a winter jacket.
	You can imagine it was 115, of course, when you're a kid, you don't care.
	I can't imagine chasing dust devils.
	And we would sit out, I had a group of three or four kids, and we would sit out in the corner of this giant vacant dirt lot, out in the 110, 115 degree temperature.
	Waiting for the right dust devil, and off we'd go.
	Riding in at the center, and there was a couple occasions I actually got into the middle of them, and I remember the interior, the first thing was it was as hot as a blast furnace.
	You could barely breathe.
	I don't know exactly what physics are involved in there, but the inside temperature was even hotter than the outside.
	Yeah, I was going to ask, I wonder if there's some sort of barometric pressure difference.
	There must be in the center of that, the rotation must cause it.
	It may be the pressure.
	It can be, you know, the way the air is condensed inside of it.
	Who knows?
	But I remember looking inside and you could actually see the wall, the dust going around me.
	And it was kind of a weird, eerie, to me on the side, dusty yellow look.
	And you could actually see the tube going up into the sky.
	Oh, that's really weird to be right in the center of it and to watch the wall all around you.
	You know, and I've thought about in recent history, nowadays, to go back and do it with some professional equipment and see if I can actually photograph it.
	Our videotape, but of course, I'm sure if I was out there doing it, it probably wouldn't be too long until the guys in the little white uniforms show up.
	Probably not.
	Do you get approached by local authorities frequently when you're out?
	Yes, as a matter of fact.
	Most of the time, the local authorities want some kind of weather update, and I have a pretty good working relationship with most of them, as I do with the weather service offices throughout the plains.
	Yeah, you know, law enforcement and the spotters really don't get a lot of the credit they deserve.
	I mean, in any community right now, a matter of fact, as we're talking as late as it is, I'm sure somewhere in the United States right now there are storm spotters out looking at a storm, reporting it back to the Weather Service.
	Storm spotters are really overlooked.
	We hear all this about chasing, but storm spotters and the people that work at the Weather Service are often overlooked in all this.
	Very important.
	Very important.
	They save a lot of lives, and they unfortunately never get credit for what they do.
	All right.
	I'll hold it right there.
	Warren Fadley is my guest.
	He gets to take a little bit of a break right now at the top of the hour.
	We're talking about storms, and we had a real whiz banger in the desert here today.
	The desert picked up and moved.
	I'm telling you, it was awesome.
	from the high deserts in the middle of the night i'm art bell
	oh i try to reach for you
	I try to wait for you, but you have flown so far.
	Whatever happened to our love?
	I wish I understood.
	It used to be so nice.
	You're so sweet, you're so sweet You're so sweet, you're so sweet
	You're so sweet, you're so sweet Oh, when you near me, darling
	Can't you hear me, it's so sweet It's the way The love you gave me Nothing left to save me It's the way When you're gone How can I even try to go on?
	When you're gone, how can I even try to go on?
	When you're gone, so I try, how can I carry on?
	Call Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye from west of the Rockies at 1-800-693-4111.
	1-800-825-5033. First time callers may reach out at 1-775-727-1222.
	And the wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295. To reach out on the toll free
	international line, call your AT&T operator and have them dial 800-893-0903.
	Darling, can you hear me inside?
	Good morning, everybody.
	My guest is Warren Fadley.
	He's a storm chaser, one of America's actually premier storm chasers.
	His credits go on and on.
	He's been published in pictures just about everywhere.
	And I believe he's got a website.
	We'll catch up with all of that in a moment.
	Stay right there.
	Once again, here is Warren Fadley.
	Warren, I've got a question for you from Columbia, Tennessee.
	What is a microburst?
	You know, we know what a tornado is, sort of, I guess.
	We know what straight line winds like the ones we had here are, but what is this microburst thing?
	It brings down airplanes and stuff like that?
	Well, microburst is what we talked about earlier about the wind falling from a thunderstorm and hitting the ground.
	Of course, if you're flying and you fly into one of these, you're going to have air which is descending and can get you in a lot of trouble.
	So that's what, when people say a microburst, that's what they're talking about is when the winds from the thunderstorm fall.
	The downdraft, right?
	Right, the downdraft, and move out across the ground.
	Of course, if you're flying, that won't do you much good, but if you're up in the air, they'll push you down towards the ground.
	So that's why you hear that term used.
	These microbursts are visible on some types of radar?
	It depends.
	You know, I suppose you could adjust a Doppler type radar to pick something like that up, but generally they're not.
	Now there are special radars that are used around airports to detect these things.
	Generally when you're talking about microbursts, you're talking about a very small concentrated area.
	Usually somewhere less than, say, three miles.
	So it's a very, very small area.
	And they don't last that long.
	They usually last less than five minutes.
	But, again, if you're in a plane or if you're on the ground near one, they can do quite a bit of damage.
	Here's Sheila in Arlington, Texas, who says, Mr. Bell, in May of 99, Oklahoma City, Tornado F5.
	Ask if he was there.
	It's the highest storm winds ever recorded.
	It felt like your insides were being sucked out.
	Your eyeballs, too.
	We went through it.
	What was the date again?
	99, Oklahoma City, F5.
	Yes, I wasn't on that specific tornado.
	I was on a tornado that was west of Oklahoma City.
	As a matter of fact, there were three or four intense supercell storms that went up on that day and I believe killed 30, 40 people.
	That was the last major fatality type outbreak we've had.
	Well, here's a good question for you.
	If you're with Dorothy there in the farmhouse in Kansas, And you look out and you go, oh my god, a tornado.
	What is your best bet?
	Assuming you don't have a storm cellar, do you get in your car and run?
	Or is that one way to do it, a safe way?
	Or do you hunker down in the house?
	Or what's the safest bet?
	Well, as I always tell people, the safest bet is to have planned ahead for that.
	But if you get in a situation like you just described, The best thing you could do is to find someplace underground, no matter what it is.
	You're always going to be safer underground, in a basement, in a depression.
	You know, if you were an experienced storm chaser, there's a chance you could get in a car and drive away if you knew what you were doing.
	Right.
	But most people, when they see a tornado coming towards them, they panic.
	I mean, they lose their mind.
	Tornadoes are really odd because they're somewhat mesmerizing.
	And even after the number I've seen, There's still something about them that I've equated to like you can get transfixed staring at a fire in the fireplace.
	That's right.
	There's something about them that just transfixes you for a while.
	And I'm sure there's a lot of people who have lost their lives because they've seen these things coming.
	And they just freeze.
	And they freeze.
	And they're very hard to judge distance and speed.
	Uh, because it's such an odd phenomenon.
	It's not something you see every day.
	They've had tornadoes do some pretty strange things, like for example, stay in one spot
	for 20 minutes and dig a hole in the ground.
	Well, I know that tornadoes can move in very odd directions.
	The majority of tornadoes move towards the northeast, or towards the east.
	Right.
	But they can do odd things.
	There's tornadoes that have made complete circles.
	There's tornadoes that have stopped.
	There's tornadoes, as a matter of fact, a couple years ago, there was one moving at 100 miles per hour.
	I heard, Warren, that occasionally tornadoes have actually become so strong, so fast, that they've broken away from the thunderstorm that was feeding them and moved ahead of it.
	That I have never heard of.
	You've never heard of that?
	No.
	Now, of course, they don't last because they're not maintained, but they can, for a time, move ahead, I've heard.
	Well, during a dissipation stage of a tornado, you can still have a very weak circulation.
	It may not be associated with the main rotation of the storm, but that would be very short-lived and probably wouldn't do any damage.
	Now, you can have things leading edge.
	You can have these vortices at the leading edge of a thunderstorm known as gustnados.
	But they're not generally associated with any kind of large-scale rotation that you have.
	Did you say gustnado?
	Gustnado.
	Located at the leading edge of a thunderstorm, or just in front of it, as we were talking earlier, some of the winds, the microburst-type winds fanning out from the storm will kick up these little, very similar to dust devils.
	Are we perhaps overdue for a major, very deadly weather event?
	and I've seen them, depending on which way you're looking at the storm, and if you don't
	have your bearings straight, it will look like a real tornado.
	Many of the false reports you get around thunderstorms are gustnadoes.
	Okay.
	Are we perhaps overdue for a major, very deadly weather event?
	It's been so quiet, but quiet and weird.
	What did they say?
	Minnesota, 92.
	90 degrees today or something like that in Minnesota?
	That's insane.
	Well, we took a break there.
	I was looking at some of the forecasts for today now.
	I guess it was tomorrow just a little bit ago, but for Tuesday.
	You know, there is a risk up there of severe weather and you figure with these winds heading up in that direction and the dew points are a little bit higher and those higher temperatures, something's going to give.
	You live up in that part of the country, you might want to keep an eye on the weather tomorrow.
	You wouldn't likely take a trip based on what you know tonight, unless, of course, you're doing the program so you can't do it, but I mean, seeing that, would that cause you to get on a plane and go?
	No, it would have to be something extraordinary, something that had enough positive elements and a few fewer negative elements to go.
	There are a few situations where I would actually do that.
	But you have to remember with severe weather, you know, you can forecast a day in advance, you can forecast hours in advance, but a lot of times it comes down to, believe it or not, one or two degrees difference in the upper atmosphere, which we call capping, which holds back the development of storms.
	And sometimes that can be just a few degrees.
	That will prevent major tornadic outbreaks.
	The people in the plains probably have no idea how many times That chasers have been sitting out there, and the atmosphere has come within just a few degrees of let loose, absolutely horrific weather.
	How much does the jet stream have to do with this?
	Now, it does seem to follow that where the jet stream curves and twists directly under the jet stream, people seem to have a lot of trouble.
	Is it the jet stream driving the weather along with it, or how does that work?
	Absolutely.
	A jet stream is one of the most critical elements for the formation of a tornado.
	You need to have that upper level flow.
	You need to have veering winds from the surface up through the atmosphere.
	It's very important to get the rotation going in a storm.
	The jet stream also creates lift in the atmosphere.
	When you have any body of fast moving currents over an area, you're going to have some upswelling, which will give you some lift.
	The jet stream also vents storms.
	Most of the sea storms out here in the desert, they go up and they look tremendous.
	But what happens is they collapse on themselves, all that weight, and they just fall and collapse.
	Yes.
	Well, with the supercell storms you have out in the plains that create the majority of the large tornadoes, you do have jet stream winds, which are venting the top of those storms, allowing the updrafts to survive for longer periods.
	Okay, but how high is the jet stream?
	Well, the jet stream generally, when you hear someone referring to a jet stream, they're talking about somewhere in the range of anywhere from probably, you know, 10,000 feet on up to 40, 50, 60,000 feet.
	Alright, the reason I ask that is because when you get, when you start talking about the supercells you and I have been talking about, the kind that form out the panhandle and up into Oklahoma, those supercells I believe can get as high as 50 or 60,000 feet, can't they?
	Oh yeah.
	It's not unusual for them to be well over 50,000 feet.
	So that means it's right on, it's going right through the jet stream.
	Oh yeah, absolutely.
	That helps move the storms along and again it creates a lot of lift and moves them along.
	When you talk about the jet stream, you have to remember there are different types of jet streams.
	There's low-level jets, what we call, that sometimes set up in the plains coming from the south.
	So you have jet streams up Through all levels of the atmosphere, and of course, depending on where you are on Earth, there are different levels and different intensities.
	You keep talking about the physics of all of this.
	Do we completely understand, do we really completely understand the physics of all this?
	One would almost think no, or we'd be able to have completely accurate forecasts, which we certainly do not.
	Well, you know, weather forecasting is kind of interesting because Of all the sciences, it's probably one of the ones that has not really advanced as fast as a lot of other science.
	But why not?
	Well, there's a good reason for that, and that is a lot of the top minds, and there are, trust me, there's some people in tornado research, and people, for example, out of Norman, Oklahoma, who are brilliant.
	I've met these people, I've read their work, they're absolutely brilliant people.
	The problem is, on a large scale, I don't think a lot of kids are enticed into meteorology.
	You know, people with a brilliant mind seem to go towards the money.
	They go towards, you know, engineering, law, medicine.
	Yeah, but you're a good example of somebody who's been able to chase his dream and storms and make money at the same time.
	That's true, but, you know, I'm not a scientist, although I do admire the science of it immensely.
	It just doesn't attract, meteorology doesn't attract, I think, the most brilliant, the large pools of brilliant people, although it certainly has a few people, many people who are Who are gifted, but it doesn't attract the kind of people I think who are looking for money.
	I just can't figure that.
	I mean, it has one of the most profound effects on our planet.
	It makes or breaks insurance companies.
	It affects economies of entire nations and parts of the world.
	It just doesn't make sense.
	I mean, it's what's all around us.
	Well, you know, weather forecasting has come along very slow.
	We have things now called atmospheric profilers.
	Which are Doppler radars that point vertically.
	So you can actually tell the wind speeds if you have the right configuration.
	You can actually tell which way the winds are blowing without setting up the standard.
	Most people have seen the weather balloons that they release to gather data as they go up to the atmosphere.
	Well the problem is here in the U.S.
	most of the time they only launch those twice a day.
	They launch them in the a.m.
	and they launch them at the p.m.
	When most severe weather occurs, which isn't towards the mid-afternoon to early evening, they don't really know what's going on in the atmosphere as far as temperatures go.
	For example, we were talking earlier about the cap and the temperatures, how important that is for severe weather.
	Occasionally, if it looks like it's going to be a big day, they'll send up an extra balloon, but that's one of the weaknesses.
	It's just an example of one of the weaknesses in forecasting.
	There's that large void of data between certain hours that prevent forecasters from making
	a really, really positive forecast.
	And there's other little things like that.
	So I think at some point, somebody has to be willing to put the money and the technology
	into it to make more accurate forecasts.
	Although, of course, nowadays I think you could say the forecasting is a lot more accurate
	than it was, say, 10 or 20 years ago.
	Well, I'm going to go to my experience here over the last, say, month.
	A lot of times they will forecast 40 mph better winds, perhaps gusts to 60, and it just doesn't
	And it doesn't happen four or five times.
	And then suddenly, yesterday, it happened.
	It didn't just happen.
	It happened beyond their wildest expectations of the forecast.
	I mean, we had almost 100 mph winds here, and they were talking about maybe gusts to 60.
	So, they seem to miss it on one side or the other.
	And that causes people, you know, after you cry wolf about three or four times, people go, oh yeah, right.
	You know, we're used to wind here in the desert, no big deal.
	And then you get the almost hundred mile an hour winds that destroy things.
	Well, it's still very difficult to forecast, and it's not because of negligence with the tools that the forecasters have.
	And I think the technology, they do the best they can.
	With what they have.
	But, you know, weather's fickle.
	It's really bizarre.
	You just never know from one day to the next what's going to happen.
	And, you know, you do the best you can, but there's no foolproof method yet.
	Within, really, a few hours to forecast, of course, with Doppler radar, which is one of the greatest, in my opinion, tools that the Weather Service has nowadays, you can, you know, dissect a storm and tell if it has tornadic potential.
	Sometimes an hour in advance.
	Okay, listen, I don't want to crash your site, but I'm on your site right now, stormchaser.com.
	We've got a link up under your name on my website right now, artbell.com, if people want to follow it.
	Stormchaser.com is the website.
	And I'm looking at a photograph, this month's amazing storm chasing weather picture, courtesy of Storm Chaser Picture of the Month homepage.
	Okay, well, here's this tornado.
	My God, it looks like, it actually looks like, I'm curious, are you looking at the photograph?
	I think I remember which one it is, even though it's this way.
	It almost looks like there's three other tornadoes visible, or three other little arms that could be tornadoes, or part of the, I can't quite make out the configuration of what I'm seeing, it's very interesting.
	Okay, yeah.
	Someone earlier had emailed you about the 1999 outbreak in Oklahoma.
	This is one of the tornadoes from that day of a western storm.
	West of Oklahoma City.
	And that just missed.
	You can see that little house down there.
	Of course, people listening can't see it, but the tornado is passing right next to a farmhouse and probably missed it.
	It looks like probably about a quarter of a mile.
	Wow.
	As a matter of fact, when I was sitting there videotaping that, there was a group of people, local people there, talking about the people that lived there.
	They actually knew the family.
	Let me ask again about the apparent additional tornadoes or additional rotational things that are sticking down, not all the way to the ground.
	What have we got there?
	Well, you have to remember that the majority of tornadoes are made up of individual vortices within that circulation.
	Right.
	So, when you see on television a tornado, it's not just one, usually one large circulation.
	It's a series of sub-vortices within that circulation, which, if you think of it, the damage that does, instead of having one area of circulation, you may have numerous areas and they're spinning, you know, two or three hundred miles per hour.
	You can imagine the efficiency of the damage.
	And also why you have sometimes unusual damage.
	You know, one building will be destroyed and the one next to it is not because of the way, the physics of the structure of that vortice.
	This one, you can see there's the main one on the ground and that circulation around that area is actually some of the other vortices are spinning off of it.
	And sometimes you'll see them, they'll come out horizontally.
	Really, as a matter of fact, on that same day in Oklahoma City, there's a classic shot of a large tornado on the ground with a horizontal tube coming out the side of it, a smaller one.
	Again, you know, the physics are just amazing.
	Do we really understand completely, do you believe, the physics involved?
	You know, there's some researchers in Oklahoma that are doing that right now.
	A couple years ago they had Operation Vortex, which went out a massive research project.
	They were using planes and research vehicles And the data from that is just fantastic to read because they've learned so much now, especially with the portable dopplers, which they're taking out into the field, able to dissect storms up close and personal to get all kinds of different readings at different levels to see why these things form, why they dissipate, why sometimes the perfect storm does not create a tornado, which can be just as important as the ones that do.
	Oh, that's an interesting term.
	So they're learning.
	I mean, for example, they found out that a lot of the tornadoes are the result of boundaries left over from other storms.
	Matter of fact, if I remember right on this day, I believe there were some existing on the Oklahoma Day in 1999, there were some boundaries from previous precipitation earlier in the day.
	Just as a matter of interest, since you do this as a full-time profession, when things are totally calm, And it's a beautiful day, and the birds are singing, and there's no bad weather anywhere.
	Do you sit around and pout, or what?
	No, you know, I enjoy that.
	Do you really enjoy a nice day?
	I really do.
	You know, I don't enjoy the death and destruction.
	Hold on.
	We're at the bottom of the hour.
	I was just wondering what does a full-time photojournalist do on a really nice day?
	This is coast and we'll be right back Music playing
	Music playing Don't bother asking for explanations.
	They'll tell you that it's your game.
	Explanations she could tell you that she gave you In the air of the cab
	She doesn't give you time to question As she locks up your arms and goes
	And you follow to your sense of which direction Completely disappears
	By the blue cloud walls near the market stalls There's a hint in there she leads you to
	See you next time.
	These days, as I feel my life, just like a river running through the air of the camp.
	To reach Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nigh, from Winslow, the Rockies, dial 1-866-9332.
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	dial 800-893-0903.
	This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the Premier Radio Network.
	Warren Pateley, who's one of our nation's premier storm chasers, something a lot of people would consider to be an insane career path to follow, is with us this night, this morning actually.
	And I'm getting ready to ask him some pretty wild questions, so I hope he's ready.
	If you are, it's coming up.
	Now, this should begin to get very interesting.
	Warren, you mentioned a phrase a little while ago that keyed in memory for me, Perfect Storm.
	Of course, it was a movie called Perfect Storm.
	And occasionally, storms can sort of come together, can't they?
	It doesn't happen all that Frequently, but large storms can come together and become one?
	You know, the elements that help create the large storm systems, like the perfect storm, for example, it's really a timing of elements coming together at the right time.
	Whether you're talking about the wind you had today or the perfect storm, you know, it's like a machine.
	Everything has to work at the right time and come together at the right place to create Or the wrong way, depending on your point of view.
	The wrong way, correct.
	And as a matter of fact, I just noticed here, this is kind of interesting, they just issued a high risk, or actually it would be today, it would be Tuesday, for portions of across Minnesota, western Wisconsin, northwestern Iowa.
	So all that heat is about to explode.
	Your winds are going up there.
	As a matter of fact, a lot of people probably don't know what high risk means, but I'll tell you that's very, very rare.
	rating that the Storm Prediction Center gives you, you see only a handful, maybe one or two a year issue.
	Oh, really?
	Very, very rare.
	As a matter of fact, I was just looking at the statement here, it says parameters appear to be coming together for a significant severe wind event across portions of the upper Mississippi Valley.
	Oh my God.
	We heard the 90s in Minnesota, so in other words, all of that heat is about to meet up with something.
	Absolutely.
	The moisture up there and the heat and the winds are going to come together tomorrow, and if you live up in that portion of the country, you'll want to really watch the weather tomorrow.
	The forecasting, again, that's very rare.
	They issue these, and I saw the red come up on the screen.
	As a matter of fact, if you go to my, we were talking about the stormchaser.com on the left-hand side, there's actually a little graphic there from the STC, and you can click on there.
	It'll give you all the... Where is it?
	I'm on your page.
	If you look on the left-hand side, you come down there about halfway, it says, Today's Severe Weather Outlook.
	Okay.
	From the SPC, and I put that there so people can go there.
	But when we were talking at the break, I looked on there and saw that red, and I'm like, oh boy.
	Now I want to see it myself, and everybody else is going to be rushing there.
	Now let's see, I'm on Main Menu, Media Center, Stock Images and Footage, Warren Cyclone, Cowboy Homepage.
	Oh, that should be interesting.
	Storm Chaser Print Gallery, Chase Products, Speaking Engagements, Sponsor at Chaser, Chase Frequently Asked Questions, Chase Links.
	We're getting there.
	KidStormPage.
	KidStormPage!
	Absolutely.
	And then I've got contact data.
	And the next thing should be the Severe Weather Outlook.
	Ah, let's see.
	There you go.
	There it is.
	There it is.
	You can see they got it out of line.
	That red area.
	Very, very, very good.
	A significant event could occur tomorrow, and as a matter of fact, they've even discussed issuing a public information statement, and that's another rarity when they actually issue that kind of a statement.
	Now, I want to point out, this could change.
	This is preliminary.
	This is early.
	Well, what does this likely mean, though?
	I mean, are they looking at the possibility of tornadoes there, severe thunderstorms, or is this just going to be like what happened to us today?
	Well, no, it's going to actually be more storms.
	I think the upper atmosphere, I looked over this real quick, I didn't have time to go over the whole statement, but I think the winds, as we were talking earlier about the jet stream, and this all ties together, the winds are unidirectional, they're coming from one direction.
	Instead of having that turning in the atmosphere, which will create more rotation in the storm, I think they're looking here at more of a straight line damaging wind.
	event and maybe large hail.
	Now, that could change again.
	This is preliminary.
	In the morning, I'll tell you, I don't know how many times I woke up and looked at one of these at night and got all excited when I'm out chasing and it's taken down to a slight risk, which is one of the lowest ratings.
	So, you know, severe weather like this changes hourly.
	Yeah, I see it says parameters.
	A lot of it seems awfully technical here.
	For people like yourself, but it says parameters appear to be coming together for a significant severe wind event across portions of the Upper Mississippi Valley on Tuesday.
	Oh, wow.
	So, all of that energy is about to be converted.
	Does that mean that it's going to suddenly, after all this happens, get cool?
	I don't remember there being a real strong cold front associated as you normally have this time of year with this system.
	This is more of a dynamic system as opposed to, say, what you associate with a cold front coming down and sweeping across.
	The country, this is a very intense low-pressure system.
	The one you had, again, is working its way up there, and when it hits that moisture... So, in other words, what we had is what's headed their way to cause part of the problem?
	It's heading their way.
	The strong winds, when you mix that with, you know, when you mix any kind of a strong wind with surface-heating dewpoints, you're looking for trouble, and that's obviously what they're seeing here.
	By the way, folks, if you click on that little map, it gives you a big map, and then it gives you all the explanation.
	That's really a cool link.
	Yeah, they do a great job, the SPC.
	I mean, you can't give enough credit for putting this out.
	In fact, I'm bookmarking that as we speak.
	Pilots, public, look at these now.
	Weather people, it's great information.
	As a matter of fact, it breaks it down here into tornado probability, damaging wind, and large hail probabilities, too.
	All right, here's a question that everybody asks.
	I've had people call me up and say, you know, there's got to be a way to stop a tornado.
	People have envisioned blowing, literally blowing them up, putting some sort of a very high explosive or maybe fuel air explosive or, you know, something or another in a forming tornado that would cause it to disperse instead of to continue to form.
	In your opinion, is there any possibility that could work?
	Oh, I think someday, you know, you could have lasers or some type of energy that could be put into a storm.
	They tried dropping chemicals into storms to try to change.
	As a matter of fact, I think they tried a couple years ago on a hurricane to try to cool it.
	You know, once you cool a thunderstorm, the heat, that has a tendency to diminish it.
	Absolutely.
	But, you know, the problem with that is that any time you monkey with Something like a thunderstorm.
	There is the other danger of unleashing even greater potential.
	Making it worse.
	Making it worse.
	And there was a few years ago, there was a situation where a company did some cloud seeding and the storm went on to produce severe weather.
	I don't remember the specifics, but there were people at the time blaming the people who cloud seeded saying, well that, you know, cloud seeding produces more rain.
	If you're not familiar with it, that's what they do.
	But the storm went on to become more severe.
	Now, it may have been more severe even without the cloud seeding, but you have to be very careful because once you start... So that probably discourages those kinds of efforts?
	Absolutely, because people are going to be suspect anytime you try to change the storm.
	But you have to remember, storms are a very large-scale system.
	It's very difficult.
	I mean, how are you going to pick which storm?
	It's not uncommon on the big severe weather days to have lines of storms or squall lines that can stretch almost across the whole country.
	I think at this point it would be very difficult but someday who knows and of course that'll put me out of business but that'll be fine.
	I'll co-retire.
	Warren, that leads us into even a touchier couple of areas here.
	One is there are a lot of people who believe that there are ongoing attempts at weather control.
	That our government would not talk to us about it for the very reasons that you just spoke about that they'd probably get blame But that they are secretly experimenting with modifying our weather.
	I'm sure you've dealt with the question.
	Oh, absolutely.
	And I'm sure I've heard rumors.
	I've talked to old timers who told me back even in World War Two, there were secret projects to try to make, create cloud cover, for example, or to create fog or to modify the weather.
	I believe both here, or I should say, uh... united states europe
	uh... the allies and also in germany at the time i believe there were there were
	attempted to modify the weather
	uh... but again the the amount of energy it would take i think change any kind of weather system it would be if
	you're not available now they're just not being well you know i'll
	tell you about an interesting story that you may or may not be aware of uh...
	but when they were tragic
	terrible fires going on in southeast asia uh... russia
	offered to produce a cycle.
	They said that they had satellite technology in place, satellites in place, that could produce a cyclone, and they actually offered to do it for free.
	I believe it was for Malaysia, if I'm remembering correctly.
	They offered to do it for free once, but would charge for it afterwards.
	Pretty wild story.
	That was in the mainstream press.
	Again, the amount of energy that you would have to expend to create a storm.
	Would be fantastic.
	I mean, to modify it, I think is possible, but to create it.
	But who knows?
	There may be some method someday.
	Who knows?
	It may be one of those situations where you can start something very small and it can grow in intensity.
	Yeah, like tickling an elephant or something.
	There you go.
	I don't know.
	And then, even more controversial, I've got to at least run this by you.
	There are We're in thousands of people across the country right now that believe they are seeing something they have not seen before now.
	We all know what contrails are, you know, condensation, little wispy condensation things that appear behind airplanes, sometimes linger for a little while, but most times just sort of fade away.
	In recent years, on my program and many others, people have begun to talk of what they are calling Chemtrails.
	Hmm.
	And they believe that something is, I guess that hmm means that you're not too familiar with this, or it's just too controversial.
	No, I've heard of the donut-shaped contrails, which some people theorize are pulse-type experimental aircraft engines.
	Yes.
	No, these are, and I've seen them myself, so I can describe it to you.
	On an otherwise not cloudy day, you will see many jets laying out patterns, frequently
	an X-type pattern.
	And instead of the normal dispersal of the contrails that you would see, just a slow
	whispering away, these grow sort of a dirtier color, they expand, and they actually become
	kind of a dirty, cloudy day.
	And there are many people who believe that there are ongoing experiments, for what reason
	we're not sure, whether modification or something else, that's being performed by some jet aircraft.
	Pretty wild stuff, I know, but believe me, many people have seen and believe this to be true.
	Well, there's even been theory that the jet controls actually change the weather when you have enough of them.
	Right.
	You can actually change the weather with that.
	So, you know, who knows?
	Any possibility there could be something to that?
	Well, you know, I personally haven't heard that.
	I personally haven't seen anything like that.
	I've seen contrails that will fan out, depending on what the atmosphere is doing.
	Sometimes they'll dissipate rather quickly, and sometimes they will fan out and look more like cirrus.
	Sometimes you'll have a system moving in ahead of that, and the cirrus will blend in with the contrails.
	You can have, in some cases, it's kind of rare, but you can have contrail shadows.
	Where the sun actually hits the contrail and hits a cloud below, say a cirrus cloud, and you actually see a gray shadow below it.
	But I've never heard a theory of anything like that.
	You're liable to hear it in the next hour.
	So then, is it fair to say, do you think that if attempts at weather modification are going on, either in the private sector or in the government sector, they probably Wouldn't do a lot of talking about it.
	Oh, absolutely not.
	I mean, it's the same stuff going on up there in your neck of the woods.
	I don't think the government would certainly want to be talking about it.
	As a matter of fact, the wind here was so bad, they closed the Mercury test site just near us.
	You know, the atomic test site?
	Right.
	Closed.
	They closed it today, and they just never do that.
	That's how big it was here today.
	The wind probably picked up any of the leftover, you know, nuclear stuff and probably blew it all up to where the storms are going to be tomorrow.
	So maybe that created a new theory.
	Who knows?
	What are good things for people to remember?
	Typical safety tips as severe weather season approaches, which it is rapidly doing now.
	Well, the best thing is to stay informed by a weather radio.
	To me, the most important thing you can do is to stay informed.
	Boy, do I agree with that.
	And another thing is, if you're new to an area, if you've moved from, say, Las Vegas to Amarillo, Texas, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, you might want to start learning about severe weather.
	Don't just take it for granted that someone's going to warn you.
	There was a tornado warning three or four nights ago in Amarillo, I believe at 2 or 3 in the morning.
	Never take anything for granted.
	Learn about severe weather.
	Learn, and most importantly, have a plan if severe weather strikes.
	If you live in hurricane prone areas, you want to have specific safety measures for hurricanes.
	If you live in Tornado Alley, you want to have knowledge of what to do, where to go.
	That's always a big question.
	I know you brought that up earlier when you asked what should you do if you were in the farmhouse.
	You know, it shouldn't get to the point where you don't know what to do.
	You should always have a plan.
	But it will for many people.
	And one of the saddest things I've seen as a journalist, and it always breaks my heart to this day, it still does, is when you see children killed when a tornado strikes.
	There's absolutely no excuse for that.
	Children have a whole different way of looking at things, at storms and things.
	They expect adults to take them to safety if there's a storm.
	They rely on it.
	So it's always important to have a plan.
	If the kids are home alone, make sure they have a plan.
	Make sure they know where to go.
	Make sure they know where the shelters are.
	That's the best advice.
	Just stay informed and have a plan.
	You going to do a lot of traveling this year?
	Absolutely.
	Blast off here in about a week or maybe a little over a week.
	Non-stop until... And then what do you do?
	Just stay at the road?
	On the road, do you sleep in the vehicle that you go in?
	Or do you stay at hotels?
	Well, I used to stay in the vehicle, but fortunately I don't do that anymore.
	I need a good night's rest nowadays.
	It used to be in the old days, I used to give up lodging and sometimes food to be able to afford gas and film.
	Do you have a crew that goes with you?
	I have a volunteer chase crew.
	As a matter of fact, a lot of them live right there in Las Vegas.
	one of them lives up in my lead partner in chasing lives up in, his wife lives up in
	Ely.
	You've got a wonderful URL.
	I mean, it's a wonderful URL, and I understand somebody tried to hijack this from you recently.
	Stormchaser.com.
	That's a hot URL.
	Well, they didn't try to hijack that.
	There was a gentleman that was a fan.
	I have a service mark on Stormchaser, which only applies to the service.
	It's not a trademark, not a copyright.
	It doesn't affect the average person using the term.
	Unless for a very specific business, which, you know, 99% of the people.
	Well, some guy got the idea he would trademark my name.
	Trademark your name.
	WarrenFadley.com, which, of course, you can't do under intellectual property law.
	Right, right.
	I guess the point here is that, you know, even with storm chasing, with the little fame I get, there's always going to be these bizarre, really kind of odd things that happen.
	That's right.
	A little bit of attention.
	So I take it you were able to straighten that out.
	I know there are laws that don't really allow that kind of thing.
	You've got to chase it down.
	It was a real pain to have to do it, and I can tell anyone listening out there, if you haven't registered your own name, go out and do it.
	It's a lot easier and saves the frustration of having to deal with attorneys and their related expenses.
	When you're in the field, do you have internet capability of one sort or another?
	Oh, absolutely.
	A laptop computer is really modern.
	How do you do it, though?
	I mean, there's not all that much reliable out there.
	Well, believe it or not, with a laptop and a really good cell phone company that has a nationwide type plant you can use in any location, I can get data.
	Last year, for example, there were only one or two times, and we're talking about, you know, the Chaseville area of 20 Valley covers like 250-something 100,000 miles of area.
	Right.
	There were only one or two times when I was in the absolute middle of nowhere where I couldn't acquire data.
	And you get data rates that are useful?
	Oh yeah.
	I mean, I'm able to download now full-color radar.
	I'm not going to be able to, I'd have to sit there and wait quite a while or the connection may not be stable enough, but generally what I'm looking for or what any chaser is looking for when they're out there are surface data and the outlook like we just discussed here for tomorrow.
	That kind of written text data is generally what you're looking for.
	So the people in Minnesota, as a general precaution, with this sort of thing, should be battening down the hatches, huh?
	I would definitely say bring in the lounge chairs and anything loose out there that might fly around tomorrow.
	And again, it could change, you know.
	I see many days like this when you think, oh heck, it's going to break loose.
	And it doesn't.
	It doesn't.
	You know, if one element fails to arrive at the right time... See, that's the danger of what happened to us.
	They give us these big wind forecasts a lot.
	And it never happens.
	People get complacent.
	They think, oh yeah, right.
	And then all of a sudden it exceeds the forecast and nobody was ready.
	There was some of that that went on in our area today.
	Warren, hold on.
	We'll go to the phones when we get back.
	How about that?
	Okay.
	All right.
	Done deal.
	we will be right back I... I...
	Don't leave me this way I can't survive, I can't stay alive
	Without your love And after it rains there's a rainbow
	And when all of the colors are black It's not that the colors aren't there
	It's just imagination they lack Everything's the same back
	In my little town, my little town Thanks for watching!
	Call Art Bell in the Kingdom of Nye from west of the Rockies at 1-800-9-4.
	East of the Rockies, 1-800-825-5033.
	First time callers may reach Art at 1-775-727-1222.
	East of the Rockies 1-800-825-5033.
	First time callers may rechart at 1-775-727-1222.
	And the wildcard line is open at 1-775-727-1295.
	To rechart on the toll free international line, call your AT&T operator and have them dial 800.
	This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell from the Kingdom of Nine.
	Good morning, across everywhere.
	My guest is Warren Fadley.
	He's a storm chaser, which to many people seems like an insane profession.
	But, it's actually fun.
	My experience with it is, it's scary, but it's fun.
	And it's almost like ghosts, in a way.
	Weather is scary stuff, but in a weird way, it's fun.
	We didn't have a lot of fun today, though, now that I think about it.
	Not much fun at all.
	At any rate, we're going to open the line, so if you have any questions for Warren across the spectrum, it's time to get your telephones.
	Okay, once again, Warren Paidley is here.
	Warren, just before we go to the phones, take me through Step-by-step, in some detail, take me through one of your scariest experiences.
	I mean, what you did, how you did it, where you went, the whole thing.
	Well, the first thing that comes to mind is hell.
	A lot of people think, well, it was probably an experience with a tornado.
	I mean, even Hurricane Andrew was scary at times.
	But when I think of sheer terror, when I think of actually Really, really, really being afraid.
	It would have to be a hell storm.
	Yeah, hell.
	And, you know, you're talking about softball-sized hell stones.
	Did you say softball-sized?
	Softball-sized hell.
	You know, I've wondered about that for a long time.
	If you have something the size of a softball that is solid ice and it's falling at terminal velocity, what, about 100 miles an hour?
	Yeah, but a softball falls about 100 miles per hour.
	100 miles an hour.
	That would, well of course, if it hit you in the head it would kill you.
	Oh yeah, and there was someone recently killed, I believe it was Dallas, Texas.
	If I remember right, but I was hit in the head by a hailstorm.
	So you got into a hailstorm?
	We were driving in southwest Kansas back, I believe it was June of 1993.
	Right.
	And just made a mistake, tried to cut in front of a storm and then get to the back side of it.
	First it was rain, but you could see that ugly green, kind of sick green color off to the right of us, and we knew we were in big trouble.
	And of course, being out there in the middle of Kansas, in the middle of the field, with no shelter, we had no choice but to drive through it.
	So it's kind of green, you say?
	It's kind of a very greenish color.
	A lot of people see that before a storm and there's a number of theories we could get into as to why.
	Well, I'd like to.
	You're telling me that that produced softball size?
	They weren't softballs in that particular storm.
	They were just under baseball size.
	It started out with rain and this was all captured on videotape.
	It started out as rain and it kind of went to small pea sized hail and you can hear me Speaking on the microphone as the tape's rolling, and Hell just rapidly went from pea-sized up to marble, you could see, in the road, and then it was golf ball.
	Very, very hard Hell.
	Sometimes Hell's soft, but you could see this hitting the road, and it was pretty much staying intact, so you knew you were in trouble.
	Aye, aye, aye.
	And then tangerine-sized, and then, boom, it was hitting the top.
	Very, very deafening sound.
	As a matter of fact, some chasers even carry it.
	I know one guy in Amarillo that carries a pair of headphones to block out the sound.
	It's so deafening loud.
	Well, isn't it destroying your vehicle at that point?
	It's hitting the vehicle and, you know, considering our speed trying to get out of it and the speed of the hell, it was doing a lot of damage.
	So you were trying to drive out of it?
	We were trying to drive out of it.
	And it was hitting the roof, denting the roof, denting the hood, and one hit the windshield and it cracked and almost You've got this all on video?
	You've got this all on video?
	Cave in.
	So at that point, I had a large map up against my chest, thinking, well, you know, the next one is going to come all the way through because there's really nothing holding that windshield together.
	And about that time, we got through it.
	And I'll tell you what, it was nerve-wracking, to say the least.
	But most chasers will tell you that getting into big hell is very scary.
	Can I ask you a question?
	You've obviously got a very expensive vehicle, which you have a name for, right?
	Your Archangel?
	Right.
	Your Archangel must be a very expensive vehicle.
	Sure.
	Right?
	Absolutely.
	So, when you go to your insurance company, and you go to get insurance, and you tell them, I mean, usually they ask what you do for a living, right?
	Absolutely.
	How wild are they about giving you insurance?
	Well, I actually have commercial insurance, which covers normal driving.
	I pay the extra and go the full commercial route for the vehicle.
	As far as that kind of damage goes, I self-insure myself.
	As much as people might not like insurance companies, I don't.
	I would not take the advantage of that, of going out through my own decision and damage something.
	And just like that storm, I think it ended up doing $700 or $800 damage just to the windows, the couple windows it took out.
	But that's all self-insured.
	I pay for that.
	I don't claim that because that is part of my opinion, part of business operations.
	Uh-huh.
	And now, of course, if someone slams into the back of me when I'm driving home from chasing, that's a whole different issue or something, you know, that's in the normal course of business.
	All right.
	Here's another big question we have today, and then I'm going to get to callers.
	I'm sorry, callers.
	We'll be right with you.
	With the tremendous wind we had here today, there was an argument that went on about whether you're better off having a window cracked open to, in some way, equalize the pressure When you're having like 100 mile an hour winds or near 100 mile an hour winds, or you're better off having everything sealed up.
	A lot of people say, well, you leave something open, you give the wind an avenue to get in.
	That would certainly be true in a bigger, you know, if there was a bigger opening.
	But I just, I just don't know.
	What's the answer?
	Or is there one?
	That's an old wise tell.
	Years ago, they used to say if there was a tornado or hurricane, you should crack the windows and let the pressure equalize.
	The pressure's not intense enough.
	In those storms to disintegrate and float a building from the pressure.
	You've got to look at it this way.
	If the wind gets so intense that you're going to have that kind of damage, the windows are going to break out and take care of it themselves.
	As a matter of fact, here in town, there are many, many, many windows that imploded.
	They just flopped flat and floated.
	That tells you the kind of wind we have.
	Yeah, and the other thing is you run the risk of being in front of that window trying to open it when the glass shatters and being injured.
	That's a good point.
	So in other words, it's generally an old wives tale and you might as well keep everything closed.
	You're much safer doing that.
	You're much safer to be seeking shelter and thinking about yourself rather than worrying about that.
	Like I say, debris flying through the air is going to take out those windows no matter what you do.
	All right.
	I appreciate that information.
	I'll remember it, too.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Warren Fadley.
	Hi.
	Good evening, sir.
	Good morning.
	Actually, it would be now here in Iowa.
	Warren, I've got a personal experience and a question for you.
	It was an evening many years back, driving from the Colorado River from Lake Havasu City down to Parker, and my dad and I decided to do a little storm chasing of our own.
	And we were driving through a monsoon storm that had been, you know, building up all day long and was dissipating pretty good.
	And we started following it and it was heading, you know, along the river.
	And as we were going through it, my dad decided, you know, we better remove the coax off our 2 meter antenna, or radio, off the pickup truck we were driving there.
	That's a ham antenna, folks.
	Yeah, a ham radio antenna, 2 meters.
	We undid the coax off of the radio and laid it on the floor.
	Well, we didn't realize the coax is very close to the seat post where it bolts into the floor.
	And it was weird driving into this storm.
	There was a weird ticking noise inside the vehicle.
	We couldn't figure out where it was coming from.
	And I happened to look down by my foot and see this blue arc that, if anybody knows what a blue arc spark from a spark plug to something grounding looks like, that's the way it looked.
	It'd start out really slow.
	Within just a couple seconds, it'd start arcing very rapidly. It would completely stop, then the
	lightning would go off.
	And then it would be like this for a couple, three, four seconds.
	You are you sir?
	Sir, you were in an extremely dangerous situation.
	A two meter antenna, Warren, is a short antenna.
	Right.
	Maybe 19 inches or maybe double that, but no bigger.
	And so for that to be picking up, that means that he was in the immediate electrical field, immediately under electrical field of a storm, yes?
	Oh, absolutely.
	Matter of fact, our chase vehicles, we probably have four or five antennas on there for CBs and scanners and cell phones and all kinds.
	And also a two meter 440 rigs we carry to communicate.
	You're a ham.
	Oh, absolutely.
	Oh, no kidding.
	I'm W6OBB.
	KB7TVO.
	Glad to meet you.
	I'm W6OBB.
	KB7TVO.
	Glad to meet you.
	There we go.
	But yeah, with the antennas, you know a lot of times, believe it or not, I've been near
	storms and the antennas will actually sizzle and pop.
	And that is the energy building up.
	Now, that doesn't necessarily say there's going to be that connection made between the ground and the cloud, the cloud and the ground, whichever way it is.
	That doesn't mean that.
	And I have to tell you this story, this is really quick, but it's awfully funny.
	I was on top of a mountain here in Arizona shooting lightning a couple years ago.
	And there were a number of other photographers there watching, watching what I was doing.
	And I heard the antenna and saw them starting to pop and sizzle.
	Well, I thought, I'm not staying here, so I jumped in the truck immediately, packed everything up, and these guys were all just laughing.
	You know, there's Warren, the storm chaser, you know, jumping in his truck when there's a little bit of lightning.
	About five seconds later, a lightning bolt hit Mustin, maybe a quarter mile away.
	Uh-huh.
	And these guys jumped about, you know, two feet off the ground.
	Of course.
	So when something, you know, normally I've got like a hundred foot tower here at the house and I've got a hundred and seventy five feet on each side of the tower coming off a hundred feet for low band work and of course if you don't have that insulated when there's a lot of wind you get incredible voltages but or in a thunderstorm it gets really mean I mean you get big arcs that appear in the antenna tuner to ground but gee whiz for a two meter antenna to be taking a charge like that you're in a very dangerous area
	Yeah, absolutely.
	And I don't know what the wisdom would be of unplugging it.
	He may have saved his radio, but who knows if you're safer leaving it connected or not.
	That's probably pretty hard to say.
	Well, he said that it was jumping to the seat belt bolt, and that would be the vehicle ground.
	Yeah, I think they were very lucky, because a charge would have come in there.
	They could have been injured.
	Oh, my.
	All right.
	Wildcard Line, you're on the air with Warren Fadley.
	Hi.
	Yes, this is Dr. Bishop here at STRATCOM in Omaha, Nebraska.
	Yes, sir.
	Yes, I don't know if you're aware, I had a comment and then a question.
	First of all, you were asking about the predictability of weather.
	The actual theory of chaos actually came out of weather prediction by Dr. Lorenzo.
	That sounds correct, yes.
	And my question was, Concerning tornadoes, we had a paper that came around, everybody read, and I think they sent it originally to NASA, that were telling everybody that it was written by an aeronautical engineer, and he was postulating that a tornado was actually, where it gets its power is where it intersects the Earth's magnetic field and actually turns itself into an electric motor.
	I don't think I have, but it's interesting.
	Warren?
	I've never heard that before, and I don't know if there's any scientific fact to it.
	Personally, from what I know and what I've seen, I would doubt that would have any effect on it, because the scientists have nailed down probably better than 50, maybe 60 percent of what's happening.
	But again, who knows?
	You say they've nailed down 50 or 60 percent?
	I would say so.
	So that means there's 40 or 50 percent they don't understand?
	Absolutely, because there's still a lot of tornadoes that are produced in storms that you wouldn't think so.
	In other words, there could be some physics that are at work that they don't yet know about, right?
	I don't know that so much of physics involved is some of the mechanisms which may actually lead to the formation of a tornado.
	I think they're very close.
	A couple of researchers in Norman, Oklahoma I think are very close to figuring out.
	One of the problems is why doesn't the perfect storm produce a tornado?
	That is a very good question.
	Why not?
	That's one of the big mysteries.
	You can have a storm, I was on one last year, that if you look at a radar loop, it was the best storm in the panhandle.
	There was tornado warnings.
	I mean, the thing was perfect, but it would not produce one brief tornado.
	You've got to understand, folks.
	Translate, when he says best, it means worst.
	Right, and I don't mean to play that with any kind of disrespect.
	That's just the terminology.
	Yeah, I understand.
	It's just that a lot of people don't.
	They just don't look at the storms the same way a chaser does at all.
	That's probably true.
	But that is one of the mysteries, is why, when you have that storm that looks perfect on radar, why wouldn't it produce a tornado?
	And yet storms that don't look at all perfect and sometimes surprise the forecasters totally do produce tornadoes.
	Absolutely.
	And there's different mechanisms.
	Some storms There was a shot CNN got, some video footage that a pilot took, that I saw recently, of a tornado in the air, like two or three tornadoes, right out this guy's window.
	CNN got some video footage that a pilot took that I saw recently of a tornado in the air,
	like two or three tornadoes right out this guy's window. I wonder if you happened to
	see that.
	I'm familiar with the helicopter footage.
	Oh, that's what it was.
	I'm sorry.
	Minneapolis.
	That's right.
	Amazing amount of work, considering the danger he was in sometimes.
	As close as he was to that vortex, there could have easily been another vortex formed near him.
	So he was very, very lucky.
	Those are some of the most amazing pictures, video footage I've ever seen.
	Amazing when you see an entire pine tree flying through the air.
	Yeah, yeah, indeed.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Warren Fadley.
	Hi.
	How you doing?
	Okay, sir.
	Okay, I'm a storm chaser, too, but I restrict myself mostly to hurricanes.
	I'm an expert on hurricanes.
	Where are you?
	I'm in New Orleans, Louisiana.
	But I grew up on the East Coast, New Jersey.
	Yes, sir.
	And went through some storms.
	My first one, I was six years old, and I loved every minute of it.
	And you've got to understand, people.
	Don't get this.
	They don't understand.
	A lot of them don't.
	And you can't blame them.
	To them, it's just terrifying stuff.
	It's not fun.
	I understand.
	But I have a couple questions.
	One is, I have a very frustrating situation that you don't have when you chase tornadoes.
	And that is, when I want to go to where I think a hurricane is going to make a landfall, I'm not going to be able to get there because they're going to be evacuating.
	I'm not going to be able to get through.
	How do you get through?
	How would you get through?
	That's a really good question, and I'll tell you something.
	When I covered Hurricane Andrew, I believe it was 1992, I went to Lafayette for that one.
	You know, that was, in my opinion, the last great uncovered hurricane by the media.
	Up to that point, the media, you know, as Art pointed out earlier, would send out one guy to stand there in the rain.
	But with all the new cable stations since then, and a lot of them have come on air since then, When there's any kind of a hurricane threat now, I can guarantee you're going to see massive coverage.
	Yeah, but he wants to know how to get through.
	Right, and the problem with that now is that because of that coverage, what they're doing now is they are, the evacuations and the areas that are closing off are happening a lot further in advance.
	With Hurricane Andrew, they didn't really get crazy there until a day or two before.
	I mean, this had been going on, they knew it was coming.
	But nowadays, They close up everything real, real, real soon.
	So you have to get there days and days in advance to get access.
	But you really can't.
	You know, that's the problem.
	You can't do that because it will change course on you for sure.
	That's true.
	And even as a journalist with all the credentials I have, and if I'm doing consulting work for MSNBC or somebody... There are times they won't let you through?
	They won't let you through.
	Now, of course, you know, I spent many years as a journalist before I was a storm chaser, so I know some of the ways That it worked.
	All right, listen, both of you hold on.
	I'm gonna hold you over, caller, and just stand by.
	I'll bring you back with Warren, and we are going to continue to take calls for Warren Failey.
	Fascinating topic, the weather always is.
	Boy, it was wild here today.
	From the high desert, I'm Art Bell, and this is Coast to Coast AM.
	This is Coast to Coast AM.
	Coast to Coast AM.
	Coast to Coast AM.
	Time, time, time.
	Time, time, time, she was becoming lovely Time, time, time, she was becoming me
	See what's become of me.
	Coast to Coast AM.
	Time, time, time.
	While I looked around for my possibility I was so hard to see
	In the ground, in the ground, in the sky In the hazy shade of winter
	To reach Artvel in the Kingdom of Nigh from Wonsta Baraki's Dial 1.
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	This is Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell on the Premier Radio Networks.
	Now I can tell you this.
	goes to him with our bill on the premier radio networks like and in this
	sitting in a building under a one hundred ninety five foot tower in near
	one hundred mile per hour winds makes for a really really really interesting
	day that's kind of day of the moment i have been a very tragic
	day for an awful lot of people uh... here in the prom valley
	where we have nearly one hundred mile per hour streamline winds for three
	straight hours.
	It was absolutely terrifying.
	Warren Fadley is my guest, and that's exactly what we're talking about.
	The weather.
	It's getting pretty wild out there, folks.
	We'll continue in just a moment.
	If you have a question, and you have a telephone, you're in.
	stay right where you are all right back to work really uh...
	Warren, the caller is still on the line.
	I thought that was such a good question.
	You obviously have little tricks you can use to get in.
	You want to spill any of them?
	Well, it's not so much friction.
	I mean, at the same time, you have to understand that law enforcement has a job to do.
	And they're concerned about public safety.
	They don't always have time to sit there and distinguish between who's pressed and who's not.
	But usually, with the credentials I have, I've rarely ever had a problem.
	And usually, in retrospect, when the authorities tell you that you shouldn't be there, there's probably a pretty good reason.
	But, you know, what I would tell the callers, probably if you're, you know, heck bent on On doing it is to go there early enough and find a position that's safe.
	Yeah, but his point was it inevitably changes course.
	So when you want to get into the area that's really barred, you're saying most times with credentials they'll let you in.
	And probably say you're on your own, bud.
	Right.
	Sometimes they'll ask for the next akin to kind of stir your emotions and make you think about it, which they've done to me on several occasions.
	Well, maybe we can go together.
	There we go.
	Live broadcast from the eye of the hurricane.
	You do take volunteers in occasionally?
	We work with volunteers, the same people I've worked with for years.
	I'm kind of against getting too many people in a group because it gets a little bit more difficult to keep track of everyone and be safe.
	It's just one of those things where I'd rather chase with people that have some experience.
	Now, occasionally I do offer opportunities for people to chase, but of course there is a fee for that.
	That's just the way it goes.
	You know, you have to support chasing.
	That's right.
	Lynn in Iowa asks, have you ever seen and or photographed any ball lightning?
	No, and you know, I'd love to see ball lightning.
	I have no doubt that it exists.
	I've talked to people who had no previous knowledge of ball lightning and when I told them what I did they started telling me these stories and I go, hey, you know, you saw ball lightning.
	I have no doubt it exists.
	I think it's an interesting phenomenon.
	I'd love to figure out, you know, Well, you haven't seen it.
	I've got a photo of it, but I have seen it.
	I mean, I haven't seen it, but I've seen things in storms after lightning strikes that I thought was ball lightning, and I certainly would love to see it.
	I'd love to photograph it.
	Okay.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air.
	Hi.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	West... Oh, I didn't press a button.
	Now.
	Now.
	Hi, you're on the air now with Warren.
	Hi.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	My name's Jim.
	Yes, Jim.
	I'm calling from Sandy, Oregon, and I'm listening to you on KEX 190.
	Yes, sir.
	I have a question for your guest.
	Fire away!
	Has anybody ever seen the inside of a tornado?
	Yeah, actually that's a pretty good question.
	There have been a couple eyewitness reports about looking up into a tornado, but I'll tell you the problem with that, and that is, I myself and a lot of other chasers will tell you, when those clouds are very turbulent, you can look up and there's all kinds of circulation.
	It's not uncommon to look up and see swirls going right above you that are not necessarily tornadic swirls.
	They may just be the agitation in the clouds of some low-level shear going on.
	There is one account, I can't remember the specifics, but there was one account where there was actually a tornado with damage that moved over a location and the gentleman there described in the story how he looked up into the tornado. So that,
	you know, it's possible, but then again there's a lot of things that can fool you.
	Would you, if you had the opportunity, would you get in a ditch and let one pass over?
	If I knew I could do it safely, I'd do it tomorrow. If there was a way to do it, I suppose
	if you had a ditch and you could crawl into it and let it go over you.
	That's, you know, almost happened a couple times by accident.
	Really?
	Last year in Childress, Texas, I waited too long in one location and decided not to move, and I had the actual, what we call the mesocyclone, go right above me.
	I mean, you could actually see the rotation, like I was saying before, rapidly rotating right above me.
	And of course, afterwards, I really was upset with myself for doing something so stupid.
	Toreto could have came down any second, but that's how you're chasing.
	One thing I do want to point out, we've talked a lot about chasing and how exciting and fun and things like that, but I also want to point out, because I did have someone email me at the break here and ask me about this, it's not always fun and games.
	It's a lot of tragic, there's a lot of tragedy associated with it.
	As a journalist, I've seen it.
	My very first storm chase in 1987, ironically, the very first day I ever went storm chasing in a plane, I ended up in Saragossa, Texas, which had been hit by a violent tornado and killed, I think, 29 or 30 people.
	At that point, as a journalist, I made it very clear to myself that my work from that moment on would involve safety and education.
	A lot of the work I do does go to the Red Cross and the Weather Service.
	I want everyone listening to know that chasing can be exciting like any other job, but there is a serious side of it, and I do take that very seriously.
	Now, when you take somebody with you for a fee, whatever, do you make them sign releases, that sort of thing?
	Yeah, I haven't done that yet.
	I actually put up an ad on eBay to do that, to try to raise some funds.
	But yeah, of course, there would have to be all kinds of waivers, releases, and things like that signed.
	Now, people should know that with an experienced storm chaser, for the most part, you're really much safer than you would be if you might be in the path of the storm otherwise, because a storm chaser knows which way is moving, which way to go.
	I think so.
	It depends on who you chase.
	Most of the veteran chasers, and there's actually a few gals that do it too, they know what they're doing.
	They're not going to get in trouble.
	Now, I'm probably a little more conservative than most chasers.
	I mean, chasers sometimes will joke that they've seen me heading away from a storm.
	As a photographer, I have to have certain elements of light, like contrast, the more isolated storms.
	So, I'm a little bit... I tend to chase away from some of the big, giant... Well, once you're in the downpour or the hailstorm, it's too late.
	There's no photography to be done.
	You've got to have some distance.
	That's true, unless you want to photograph the hell, but there are people who are driving what we call the core of the storm, the very dangerous part where you have the hell and you may have a tornado embedded in it.
	No, they're nuts!
	There are people that will do that and sometimes you can't help it.
	Sometimes the number of storms will go up and you can't avoid it, but I purposely don't do that.
	I have a very different, distinct methodology of chasing.
	I like to stay west.
	I like to stay in the clear air.
	I like to take the The one in a million chance on the absolute, you know, perfect storm for me.
	And I do, I miss a lot of storms because I chase that way.
	But, you know, as you saw on my website, when you get a photo out there in that clear air, it pays off.
	Yeah, it sure does.
	In more ways than one, I'm sure.
	First time caller on the line, you're on the air with Warren Fadley.
	Hi.
	Hello there.
	Hi.
	Hi, you're on the air, sir.
	Go ahead.
	Warren, I'm one of those people that enjoys and also respects weather.
	There was one thing I wanted to mention was that we were sailing up at anchor during a very deep depression up in the north channel of Georgian Bay when the worst storm I've ever seen in my entire life came at us with three levels of clouds and lateral lightning and my nephew was playing the end by the doors and I thought it was the end.
	It really truly was the most frightening thing I've ever seen in my life.
	A lot of wind.
	But then it sort of just went away.
	It just rose up and went over us.
	But what I was calling about was straight line winds here in Detroit.
	And Detroit does not get a lot of severe weather.
	We get typical summer storms and that sort of thing since I've been here my entire life and live very close to Lake St.
	Clair.
	But 1996, we had our first, I believe it was our first time, I experienced a straight line wind and it tore up trees like I've never seen in my life.
	Like a tornado would.
	But only at a specific, like maybe the width of a half a mile, maybe three quarters of a mile, and that was it.
	This is a really good question.
	West to east, directly west to east.
	A wonderful question.
	It's occurred also in Colorado where it has taken trees right down to the ground.
	These weird corridors of wind.
	What are those, Warren?
	Well, it depends, you know.
	It depends on what kind of wind you're talking about.
	If it's winds from like you had today, which aren't necessarily associated with a convective type storm system, that are more associated with a low-pressure system, or winds that are associated with a storm.
	You know, there's all kinds of complexities involved.
	Again, we were talking earlier about the microbursts being very narrow, you know, maybe less than three miles It just depends on the type of storm or what's generating those winds and I don't know specifically what he was referring to.
	Well, I've seen meteorologists say the jet stream touched down.
	That has been happening, hasn't it?
	Well, I don't think technically that would be the correct way to phrase it because, you know, the jet stream is a term again used for those winds generally around, you know, 30,000 feet.
	Although there's different levels, but when you have winds at the surface that strong, you could say, you know, maybe a better terminology would be jet stream-type winds or something, but it's not as though the atmosphere has suddenly, you know, something's changed where the jet stream has come down.
	Has actually come down to the ground.
	Correct, right.
	Okay.
	Wild Card Line, you're on the air with Warren Fadley.
	Hello.
	Hey, how are you this evening?
	Well, a little windblown, otherwise all right.
	I think I may be one of those people, when I was born, there must have been a magnetic field.
	I was raised a White Sands.
	Oh.
	So I know what you mean about those desert storms.
	There you are.
	And I also am a survivor of the Xenia tornado.
	Wow.
	Which tornado?
	Xenia, Ohio.
	Oh, that tornado.
	I just happened to move up there from Dayton.
	Yes.
	Then we moved to Louisville.
	And then that was that Easter Sunday where those tornadoes came into Louisville?
	That's right.
	We stood out in our backyard, brand new house, and we watched four tornadoes just bounce all over the town.
	Now that was an unusual sight.
	It was.
	I was in Louisville just about that time.
	It was incredible.
	Absolutely incredible.
	Warren, are tornadoes showing up in places where they traditionally have not been so much?
	You know, I wouldn't say that.
	I don't think there's any evidence.
	Of course, the United States leads the number of tornadoes, I believe.
	My knowledge is certainly right.
	I believe Canada is second, maybe Russia is third.
	Why would that be?
	Why would we be such a popular tornado place?
	You know, we just have the absolute perfect setup.
	With the Gulf of Mexico bringing the moisture into the central plains, you know, with the systems moving across the country from the west to the east, it's just the perfect setup of cold air meeting warm air, warm humid air.
	You really, you know, couldn't have a better setup to create tornadoes.
	I see.
	Very unique in all the world.
	Okay.
	East of the Rockies, you're on the air with Warren Pateley.
	Hi.
	Hi there.
	This is Doug in Indianapolis.
	Yes, Doug.
	Yeah, what I was wondering about was I've always heard that tornadoes had winds that were going up in the center.
	Is that right?
	Hmm.
	You know, they're actually doing some research on that because of some of the recent footage that's been taken because when you see the damage, I don't believe there's actually what people think of a suction going on where the whole theory of it going over a lake and sucking all the water out of it.
	I don't think that occurs.
	But the motion in the tornado, those vortices, there is some lift involved in that.
	Um, and you would have to really get with the scientists to find out the specific physics involved in there.
	But I have seen debris listed.
	As a matter of fact, there was research done a few years ago where they went through damaged, or torn out, struck areas and did surveys of where the debris ended up.
	For checks, for example, which actually have a location and a name on them.
	Uh, and these things were transported for hundreds and hundreds of miles across the country.
	Oh, really?
	Once they got caught up into the circulation of the jet stream.
	So, in that... You're talking to somebody who earlier today was supposed to be paid, and so usually when they pay me, they put my paycheck under a rock on the driveway.
	Well, needless to say, there was no paycheck there today.
	Well, I'll look for it when I'm out in Texas.
	It could be in Arizona by now.
	It could be down in northern Mexico.
	Who knows?
	But it's not here, that's for sure.
	All right.
	West of the Rockies, you're on the air with Warren Fadley.
	Hi.
	Hi, Mr. Bell.
	This is Kevin from Kingman, Arizona.
	Yes, sir.
	Quick experience.
	I've got a question for him.
	Do you remember that one hurricane that came up the Gulf of Mexico like four or five years ago and the eye of it passed over you, my Arizona?
	I do remember that, yes.
	Okay, I was on the road of 93 up near Duffin, Arizona and that eye passed right over me when I was driving on it.
	I'll tell you what, that was some type of experience there.
	But my question is that I've noticed within the past five or six years that the western part of Phoenix has been getting hit with a lot more tornadoes.
	Why is that?
	There's actually a good reason for that.
	Okay, what is it?
	And the reason is there's more people seeing them.
	Oh, so there's not really more tornadoes, more people to see them?
	No, usually that country has about between 1,000 and 1,200.
	Of course, this year we're down, which is good news.
	And the fatalities are down, which is definitely wonderful news.
	But you have people moving into these regions where before, 100 years ago, no one would have noticed the tornado.
	Now, you have more construction going on.
	in these areas. So more people are reporting them and of course more tornadoes are actually striking some type of...
	Because there's more to strike?
	Absolutely. The target's getting bigger.
	Alright, first time caller on line, not a lot of time. You're on the air with Warren Fadley. Hi.
	Hi, this is Dane from southern Indiana.
	Yes, sir.
	In a very strong tornado, how can a perfectly structured house on one side of the street be blown into kindling
	and just a shack right on the other side of the street be blown over?
	Yeah, the classic question.
	And of course, that is exactly what tornadoes do.
	Well, again, the reason is, you have to remember, a tornado is made up of generally individual vortices within that circulation.
	And you have to remember, you may have one that may be, you know, 100 feet away that's going 200 miles per hour.
	You may have one, you know, 300 feet away that's only going 50 miles per hour and may do light damage.
	You know, you have to kind of think of it that it's hit and miss.
	I mean, you may have incredible winds within one small area and then just, you know, a few hundred yards away or less, if it's a large tornado, the winds may be relatively, you know, light and not do any damage.
	What would be the lowest speed of a tornado?
	We frequently talk about the highest speed.
	What would the lowest speed be?
	Well, technically, when you talk about an F-0, it's basically, you know, I guess you would really say it was zero or one mile per hour.
	And I do want to point out that it's not actually a tornado until there is some type of circulation on the ground, whether it's seen or not seen, whether it's just debris lifting up or you see the contact actually on the ground.
	A lot of people don't know.
	They'll see a funnel up in the air and they'll say, oh, it's a tornado, but it doesn't actually become a tornado until it actually makes contact with the ground.
	With your words or water or whatever.
	OK, we might have time for one quick one.
	Wild Card Line, you're on air with Warren Fadley.
	Hi.
	Hello, how are you doing?
	OK, sir.
	That's the first time I've listened to your show.
	Anyway, I live in East Texas and I have a question.
	I had a tornado that came over my house.
	I know it was a tornado, but the weather man said it wasn't a tornado.
	But anyway, the thing was, I believe it jumped over my house.
	Is that possible?
	Oh, yeah.
	You know, I've seen tornadoes come down into form and just dissipate instantly and reform.
	It's quite possible.
	I've seen them skip over.
	You'll see damage paths if you look in photographs or diagrams of damage paths.
	That's not unusual.
	They'll form and dissipate and reform.
	It's quite common.
	And most of the density or the darkness in a tornado is from what it picks up, dirt and such, isn't it?
	No, actually that's just the condensation, what we refer to as a condensation funnel.
	Of course, once it touches down, it may ingest some of that dirt and I've seen them, you know, Matter of fact, it was a tornado a few years ago that went through, I believe it was Wichita, Kansas, that went through a, guess where they are, some kind of a garden, and apparently the tornado turned pink momentarily, some of the witnesses said, when it went through the flowers.
	So, a lot of that happens with the terrain and what it's hitting.
	You know, I've seen them go over red clay of Texas, and then the base will be kind of a reddish color.
	The sun may be shining on them a certain way, and they may take on kind of a... Or if it's over water, it could be a blue tornado.
	Well, yeah, Land.
	Water Spouts.
	I've got pictures here of them over water, and they are actually kind of blue, but that may just be the background or the contract that makes them look that way.
	Could be.
	Listen, what a pleasure it has been to have you on the program.
	Everybody should go visit your website.
	Tell them what it is.
	www.stormchaser.com.
	Really easy to remember.
	It sure is, and it's a wonderful website to explore, and you're going to end up bookmarking part of it.
	Warren, thank you for being here.
	Good luck, and listen, Listen, since you've got a cell phone, one of these nights when you're out there and you're really into something hot, let's arrange a way for you to get through to me.
	Absolutely.
	I'll be happy to do a live broadcast from out there.
	Any old time, you just let me know and we'll work it out.
	Yeah, that'd be absolutely wild.
	You know my producer's number, right?
	Absolutely.
	I'll give them a call and we'll set it up.
	Done deal.
	And I hope everybody got something out of it, and I'd say everybody to be safe this year and keep advised and know what to do.
	Thank you, Warren, and good night.
	All right, that's it for tonight from the windblown high desert, everybody.
	And I really mean windblown.

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