Tornadoes ravage the American Midwest every year, killing hundreds of people and displacing hundreds more from their homes, but they can be so beautiful.
That sentiment was echoed by local meteorologist Miles Muzio when he visited Bakersfield College professor Natalie Burstyn’s earth science class Nov. 27 to talk about storm chasing.
Muzio, the weather forecaster for CBS affiliate KBAK Channel 29 and FOX affiliate KBFX Channel 58, travels to Tornado Alley with his wife Debra to videotape footage of tornadoes. Debra videotapes the storms while Muzio narrates with meteorological information.
According to Muzio, his love of weather motivates him to go on his storm chasing adventures. “I’m passionate about weather. That’s why I chase tornadoes,” said Muzio.
Muzio explained the system that measures tornado strength, called the Fujita Scale. The Fujita Scale ranks tornadoes based on their wind speed. A zero on the Fujita scale, labeled F0, travels between 40 and 72 mph and is the lowest storm considered a tornado. In contrast, an F5 travels between 261 and 318 mph and can lift a house off of its foundation.
The Expanded Fujita scale was put into place in February of this year. An F3, which travels between 158 and 206 mph, is considered an EF5 in the Expanded Fujita scale.
Muzio showed the class two videos of storm chases. The first video he showed was from a 1999 storm 80 miles north of Amarillo, Texas. In the video, the tornado, an F0, touched the ground briefly.
The second video Muzio showed was of a report done while he was working at KERO Channel 23 in 1993. In Amherst, Nebraska, Muzio and KERO got footage of an F3 tornado in the area that barely avoided colliding into a barnyard.
After the storm, Muzio went into the city of Amherst to survey the damage. Large divots, described by Muzio as “hail craters,” were scattered on the ground where baseball-sized hail had dropped. Tornadoes often cause hailstorms.
In a previous scene, the windshield of Muzio’s car showed visible signs of damage from hail. As Muzio explained, “That’s when I starting using rental cars” for storm chasing.
According to Muzio, tornadoes are common in parts of the Midwest due to its mid-latitude, moisture coming from the Southeast Atlantic and dry air coming in from deserts in the Southwest. Also, stronger jet streams during El Nino years tend to influence tornado activity.
Muzio also answered a number of weather-related questions that students in the class had.
He explained how low-pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere move counterclockwise around the Earth, and move clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere, how lithium is used to directly measure dew point and that the highest recorded temperature in Bakersfield was 118 degrees Fahrenheit.
Muzio briefly discussed how he, along with other meteorologists, wants to open up the first national weather museum that would likely be in St. Louis.
Planned exhibits include a wind tunnel where patrons could experience 100 mph winds and a lab that would create rain indoors.
Muzio graduated from Texas A&M and was a weather analyst for the U.S. Air Force for 12 years before deciding to become a meteorology broadcaster, working at television stations around various parts of the country for the past 30 years.