TOtable Tornado Observatory
Encyclopedia
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
—where in a tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
is a key plot element) is a large, instrumented barrel-shaped device invented in 1979 by Dr. Al Bedard and Carl Ramzy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , pronounced , like "noah", is a scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce focused on the conditions of the oceans and the atmosphere...
(NOAA) Environmental Technology Laboratory. NOAA's objective was to place the TOTO directly in the path of a tornado, where it could, theoretically, record valuable information about the tornado's structure.
To deploy TOTO, which weighed from 250 to 350 lbs, two men could unstrap its mooring cables and roll it out of the back of a customized pickup truck in about 30 seconds, using metal wheel ramps. TOTO would then be tipped into a vertical position and swivelled so that a certain side faced north (for accurate wind direction readings). The TOTO crew had to quickly find a relatively level and firm surface, off the road, away from wind obstructions and potential debris generators (such as buildings and trees). With each deployment, there was also a heightened lightning strike risk from handling a large metal object in an open area.
TOTO was deployed several times during the 1980s, but the closest deployment to a tornado was on April 29, 1984 near Ardmore, Oklahoma
Ardmore, Oklahoma
Ardmore is a business, cultural and tourism city in and the county seat of Carter County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a population of 24,283, while a 2007 estimate has the Ardmore micropolitan statistical area totaling 56,694 residents...
, by Steve Smith and Lou Wicker of NSSL
National Severe Storms Laboratory
The National Severe Storms Laboratory is a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather research laboratory located at the National Weather Center in Norman, Oklahoma....
. It turned out that TOTO had a center of gravity which was too high for extreme wind, and it fell down as it was sideswiped by the edge of the weak tornado.
TOTO was also deployed as a portable weather station to measure thunderstorm gust fronts and non-tornadic mesocyclones — with more success than its tornado mission. TOTO was retired after 1987 because of safety issues and the logistical difficulty of getting such a large, heavy, cumbersome object in front of a tornado.
TOTO is currently on display at the National Weather Center
National Weather Center
The National Weather Center , located on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, is a confederation of federal, state, and academic organizations that work together in partnership to improve understanding of events occurring in Earth's atmosphere over a wide range of time and space scales...
on the University of Oklahoma
University of Oklahoma
The University of Oklahoma is a coeducational public research university located in Norman, Oklahoma. Founded in 1890, it existed in Oklahoma Territory near Indian Territory for 17 years before the two became the state of Oklahoma. the university had 29,931 students enrolled, most located at its...
campus in Norman, Oklahoma
Norman, Oklahoma
Norman is a city in Cleveland County, Oklahoma, United States, and is located south of downtown Oklahoma City. It is part of the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, Norman was to have 110,925 full-time residents, making it the third-largest city in Oklahoma and the...
.
TOTO was the inspiration for an instrument package named "Dorothy" in the 1996 film, Twister, and for a research project in the TV movie Tornado!
Tornado!
Tornado! is a made for TV movie starring Bruce Campbell and Shannon Sturges, released on May 7, 1996. It was written by John Logan and directed by Noel Nosseck.-Plot:...
.