DMNS Weather Central (2009)
Eddie Goldstein
© 2009 Denver Museum of Nature and Science
version 8/12/13
IMPORTANT: IF YOU HAVE A HEART PACEMAKER OR ANY OTHER ELECTRONIC
MEDICAL DEVICE YOU CANNOT DO THE VAN DE GRAAFF EXPERIMENT.
YOU CAN STILL DO THE REST OF THE SHOW.
Notes: L SCREEN refers to HOUSE LEFT SCREEN, etc.
“LOGO” means the DMNS Weather Central logo is on the Left and Right screens
Script
Media and Notes
LOGO
Walk-in lights
Hi Everybody, my name is XXXXX
LOGO
It’s not a real show, it is an imaginary show, so I’ll be asking you
to use your imagination.
Pre-show lights
In this show, I hope that you’ll see how space technology is used
for tracking and predicting the weather, and that you’ll learn
some of the science that causes the weather.
This is a make believe TV show where people e-mail their
questions to us. And to answer them, we’ll be following an
imaginary summertime storm in Colorado. We’ll have field
reporters to tell us what is happening outside and we’ll be doing
experiments on the stage to explain the science.
You guys are the studio audience. When I say, “This is DMNS
Weather Central,” you folks clap.
Are you ready?
Then, let’s go.
Hi everybody, my name is XXXXXX and this is DMNS Weather L/R SCREENS: Opening
Central. This is the show where we answer your questions about theme and Title
the weather.
p2 of 14
Let’s start out by checking the Internet to see what questions
come up.
L/R SCREENS: Question
from Internet
Here’s one from JWiggins. He asks:
When I was in Colorado last June, I saw the worst thunderstorm and
tornado of my life. Can you tell me where lightning and tornadoes
come from?
To answer JWiggins’ question I’d like you to use your
imagination.
Imagine that it’s summertime. It’s the afternoon. The weather is
beginning to get cloudy.
We have field reporters all over the Denver Metro area to tell us
what’s going on with our imaginary thunderstorm.
Right now, let’s check in with 9 News meteorologist, Marty
Coniglio, to tell us what’s happening outside.
Hi this is 9News Meteorologist Marty Coniglio reporting for
Weather Central.
I’m live right now in City Park near the Denver Museum of
Nature and Science. It’s clear here right now, it’s a beautiful
day. But I’m noticing some things; The wind blowing out of the
east coming toward me and headed to the mountains, there is a
lot of low level moisture in this wind, we can feel the humidity in
the air, it’s a little bit sticky and as that’s forced up by the
mountains we are seeing some clouds form.
As that air rises higher and higher into the colder parts of the
atmosphere more of that moisture will condense into drops and
form clouds and that releases a tremendous amount of energy.
We could have some thunderstorms forming in the later part of
the day. We’ll keep an eye on that back to you in the studio.
Marty mentioned that when the Sun heats up the ground, it
causes warm, moist air to rise up.
And when it gets cool enough, it forms a cloud.
How many of you have ever seen clouds forming over the
mountains?
This is what you probably saw, and what Marty saw.

The air hits the mountains and RISES UP.
L/R SCREENS: Marty
Coniglio – Outside of
Museum FIELD REPORT
L/R SCREENS:
Ground heats up
L/R SCREENS:
Clouds form
L/R SCREENS:
Warm air hits a mountain.
p3 of 14


As it goes up, the air EXPANDS because there is less
pressure up there.
That causes the air to COOL.

And a CLOUD FORMS.
L/R SCREENS:
Cloud forms over mountain
We wanted to find out what happens when a gas expands very
quickly, so we came up with an experiment.
I have a CO2 cartridge here. Inside the gas is under a lot of
pressure. (Go into audience to have a visitor feel the temperature
of the CO2 cartridge.)
Is this CO2 cartridge really hot, really cold, or about medium?
(Answer you should get is “medium.”)
(As you walk back to the stage.)
I’m going to release the pressure on this canister and the CO2 will
expand, just as air expands when it rises. Let’s see what happens
to the temperature.
 Attach thermometer to cartridge, start graphing and
measure temperature.
 Release pressure.
 Have audience watch temperature graph and you read out
new temperature
 Again let the front row feel the cartridge and ask about
temperature. (Very Cold)
 Conclusion: When a gas goes from a higher pressure to a
lower pressure it expands and cools off.
We’ve just seen that when a gas expands quickly, it gets cold.
The same thing happens outside.



When the air rises up, it expands because there is less
pressure up there.
It gets cold.
And a cloud forms.
(Use graphic of air hitting mountain and forming cloud.)
OK, we know that air gets colder as you go up, but how much
colder does it get? To find out, we sent museum science
educator Jennifer Moss Logan out to the National Weather
Service where they are about to launch a weather balloon.
Jennifer, what’s happening out there?
L/R SCREENS: CO2
cartridge.
L/R SCREENS: CO2
cartridge showing expanding
gas.
R SCREEN: CO2 cartridge
showing expanding gas.
L SCREEN: computer
thermometer probe graph
R SCREEN: CO2 cartridge
showing expanding gas
remains on screen.
L SCREEN:
Warm air hits a mountain.
(same slide as before.)
p4 of 14
This is Jennifer Moss Logan, science educator at the museum.
I’m here at the National Weather Service out at Stapleton.
Here on the ground the temperature is 78 degrees but to find out
what it is further up the National Weather Service sends up
weather balloons. These balloons go up to 100,000 feet. As they
rise up they measure temperature, pressure and other related
information and radio it back to us.
Oh, there it goes. As you rise up through the air the temperature
gets colder and colder in fact it gets so cold that water vapor
condenses into water drops and those drops form clouds that’s
called the dew point.
Back to you in the studio.
L/R SCREENS: Jennifer
Moss Logan – Weather
Balloon FIELD REPORT
p5 of 14
As Jennifer was just saying, when the water in the air gets cold
enough, it condenses into a cloud. Let me explain.
L/R SCREENS: Water vapor
and water droplets.
In this picture, the ORANGE dots are air molecules and the
BLUE dots are water molecules.
The BLUE dots that are all by themselves are water VAPOR,
individual water molecules. This room is filled with water
vapor, but it’s invisible.
When the water gets cool enough, it condenses and clumps
together. Those are water DROPLETS, and that’s what you see
in clouds.
So, if we wanted to make a cloud in this room, all we would
have to do is make it cold enough and the water vapor in the
room would condense into a cloud.
Who would like to see me make a cloud in here?
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%
To do that, we’re going to use liquid nitrogen, 321º BELOW
ZERO Fahrenheit. So I need to put on my safety equipment.
YOU MUST WEAR
LIQUID NITROGEN
SAFETY GEAR
 Pour liquid nitrogen into pan
You can see some cloud forming already. That’s because this is
so cold that it is condensing the water vapor in the air.
 Pour in water
It looks like smoke but it’s not. Smoke would be rising but this
cloud is falling because it is cold.
 Fan it with pie tin
But, if I add wind I can blow it upwards. That’s exactly what
happens in the sky. Updrafts blow upward on the clouds keeping
them up in the air.
Even with the updrafts, if the water droplets get too big, they can
fall as rain.
That’s how you make a cloud here in the studio. But, to get the
BIG picture, we need to look from space.
p6 of 14
In 1974, the first satellite was sent into geosynchronous orbit
23,000 miles above the equator to study Earth’s weather. That
means that it always stays above the same place on Earth.
CENTER SCREEN DOWN
C SCREEN: Full Earth
Visible Satellite image
This satellite is a GOES satellite and is up there right now. It has
cameras pointed down at the Earth. It sends those pictures to
L SCREEN: GOES satellite
Silver Spring, Maryland where they are relayed to the National
R SCREEN: NCAR
p7 of 14
Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, which sends them
to us.
This is something that no one was able to see until the space age,
and now we use it every day. If you were to go 23,000 miles into
space and look down, this is what you would see.
OK, let’s find out what is happening with our imaginary
thunderstorm. Let’s zoom in on Colorado.
This is a satellite loop. Denver is HERE on the map. (Yellow
dot.)
Whoa. This is really interesting.
You can see that even though some of the clouds are coming in
from the southwest, large storm clouds are FORMING right here
over Denver.
And look how FAST they are forming. That means this could be
a really big storm.
Can you see this dark shadow? That means the clouds must be
REALLY TALL to be casting a shadow several miles long on the
Earth.
* * * * * * * * *
There is an even better way to see how tall the clouds are.
Remember how Jennifer said that it gets colder the higher you go
in the atmosphere? Well that means that the TALLER the clouds
are, the COLDER their tops will be.
This GOES satellite has infrared cameras on it, which can read
the clouds’ temperature. Let’s look.
CENTER SCREEN VIDEO:
Visible cloud cover loop.
L SCREEN: GOES satellite
R SCREEN: NCAR
p8 of 14
The BLUE areas are COLDER, and COLDER means HIGHER.
So we can see exactly where the really tall clouds are, the ones
that might form the biggest thunderstorms.
You see that dark blue? That is the storm cloud. Look how tall
it is and how fast it’s forming.
CENTER SCREEN VIDEO:
IR loop.
L SCREEN: GOES satellite
R SCREEN: NCAR
Well, this is what it looks like from space. But we want to know
what’s happening outside. So we sent David Grinspoon,
atmospheric scientist here at the Museum out to give us a report.
Dave, can you tell us what’s happening out there?
Hello this is David Grinspoon Atmospheric Scientist at the
Museum reporting for Weather Central.
I’m out here where a very large storm is developing very quickly.
I’m standing under a huge rain cloud and as you can see there
are large shafts of rain behind me. There are large updrafts and
large downdrafts within the cloud. Those updrafts and
downdrafts separate the charges in the cloud, the electrical
charges, and that makes lightning.
Each one of these lightning strikes carries over 100 million volts
of electricity and can heat the air to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
You know, that means it’s really not so safe out here so I think I
better get inside.
Now back to you in the studio.
OK, Dave, you better get inside where it’s safe.
It’s not safe to be outside when there’s lightning. We wanted to
find out why, so we came up with a way to make SAFE
LIGHTNING here in the studio. Would you like to see it?
We’re going to be making lightning with this Van de Graaff
generator. Not only will you see the lightning right here, but it
sends out electromagnetic pulses in every direction.
Because of that, IF YOU HAVE A HEART PACEMAKER
OR OTHER ELECTRONIC MEDICAL DEVICE, YOU
NEED TO STAND BEHIND THOSE FIRST TWO
L/R SCREENS: David
Grinspoon – Lightning
FIELD REPORT
CENTER SCREEN UP
L/R SCREENS: Van de
Graaff generator
p9 of 14
COLUMNS.
In the meantime, let’s see what causes lightning.
How many of you have ever gotten a shock by walking on a rug?
That’s static electricity.
How many of you have ever rubbed a balloon on your sleeve and
stuck it to a wall? That’s also static electricity.
Well clouds make static electricity, too.
Inside the cloud, water, hail, and snow are all rubbing past each
other building up static electricity.
Usually the positive charges go to the top of the cloud and the
negative to the bottom.
The negative charge in the cloud starts traveling down towards
the ground. This is called the STEPPED LEADER.
Since opposite charges attract, the negative charge at the bottom
of the cloud attracts a positive charge in the ground directly
below it. That’s called the POSITIVE SHADOW.
As the stepped leader gets closer to the ground, the positive
charge is attracted towards it. Since it is easier for electricity to
travel through the tree than through the air, the positive charge
moves up the tree.
As the stepped leader gets very close to the ground the positive
charge begins to climb up to meet it. This is called an UPWARD
STREAMER.
They are forming a path of low resistance through the
atmosphere.
When the stepped leader meets with the upward streamer, the
positive charges rush up to neutralize the charge in the clouds.
That’s the LIGHTNING STRIKE that you see.
The whole process takes less than 1/100 of a second.
L/R SCREENS: Cloud with
Charge Separation
L/R SCREENS: Lightning
Sequence – Stepped Leader
and Positive Shadow
L/R SCREENS: Lightning
Sequence – Positive Charges
going up tree
L/R SCREENS: Lightning
Sequence – Stepped Leader
and Upward Streamer almost
touching
L/R SCREENS: Lightning
Sequence – Lightning Strike
What you don’t see is the Electromagnetic Pulse that goes out in
all directions. That’s that I want to show you with the Van de
Graaff generator.




When I turn on the motor, the rubber band inside here
will start moving.
That will build up negative charges on the dome, just like
in the clouds.
This wand will become positively charged, just like the
ground.
And you’ll see the lightning here.
L/R SCREENS: Van de
Graaff Generator
p10 of 14
Can you see the lightning?
L/R SCREENS: Van de
Graaff Generator
Now multiply it by 1000. That’s how strong real lightning is –
100 million volts! You can see why even at a distance, lightning
can be a dangerous thing.
LIGHTS GET DARK
So, remember, even if you see lightning at a distance you should
GET INSIDE A HOUSE.
If you cannot get inside a house, then get into a CAR.
L/R SCREENS: Lightning
Sequence – Positive charges
in kid
What you DON’T want to do is to stay outside.
So, shout it out. Where should you go if you see lightning?
OK. We’re nice and dry inside the studio. But, Marty Coniglio
is still outside checking on the storm. Let’s find out what’s
happening out there.
Marty, can you hear me?
Hey, it’s Marty Coniglio again.
We’re getting kind of worried here. The hail just started and
some of these hail stones are as big as golf balls. Now these
large hailstones mean this storm has huge updrafts of wind. If
they’re strong enough to hold these big hailstones aloft they
could be strong enough to cause a tornado.
I’m going to get in the truck and get out of this but we’ll keep the
camera rolling so you know what’s happening.
Marty said that large hail means strong updrafts. Here’s why:
Remember I said that there were updrafts holding the clouds up.
The updrafts hold the water droplets up until they are big enough
to fall as rain.
L/R SCREENS: Marty
Coniglio – Hail Storm
FIELD REPORT
L/R SCREENS: Cloud with
updrafts and hail
Let’s zoom in.
If you have strong updrafts, they can push the droplets high in the L/R SCREENS: Cloud with
clouds long enough so that ice can form around them. You get
updrafts and hail – close-up
hail. The stronger the updrafts, the longer the droplets stay up,
and the bigger the hailstones.
That’s why Marty said that large hailstones mean strong updrafts,
which could cause tornadoes.
Here we have, from the Museum’s collection, a replica of one of
p11 of 14
the largest hailstones ever reported.
Imagine how strong an updraft must have been to hold
something this heavy up in the clouds! When the updrafts are
THAT strong, we could be in for severe weather.
We wanted to find out what happens when you get updrafts like
these, so we came up with an experiment.

Inside this box we have a hotplate, heating up the air.

To get warm, moist air, let’s add some water. (Put pan
and water into tornado box.) In a minute, it will begin to
boil.

When the warm air rises it goes out the top of the box.
More air needs to rush in to take its place. We’ve cut
slots here, here, here, and here to let the air come in.

(Sometimes, because it is so dry, I may need to add a
little more water. (Spray bottle (optional))).
LOGO
Let me change the lights so you can see what’s happening.
Let me know when you can see what is in there.
LOGO
Yes, it’s a tornado, and it forms because the air is rising out of
the box and air rushes in from the four sides to fill . . .
(((Alert Sound))) The National Weather Service has issued a
Tornado Warning for parts of Adams And Denver Counties.
(((Alert Sound))) We Repeat. The National Weather Service has
issued a Tornado Warning for parts of Adams And Denver
Counties.
LIGHTS GET DARK
L/R SCREENS: TORNADO
WARNING
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
This is getting serious.
We have one of our field reporters out there in Adams county.
Greg Thompson, scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric
Research.
Greg, can you hear me? What’s happening out there?
Hi this is Greg Thompson for Weather Central.
As you can see a tornado has formed behind me here and it’s
L/R SCREENS: Greg
Thompson – Tornado FIELD
p12 of 14
about three to five miles away. The winds are blowing pretty
strongly here, not too bad but over there near the tornado
they’re blowing a lot stronger swirling around rotating. The
winds in there can be 100 maybe 200 miles per hour. It’s a good
thing it’s over open country there’s no populated places
anywhere around here so it’s a good thing that nobody’s going
to get hurt from this. You can see that the top half has a bunch of
cloud droplets formed, it’s in a condensation funnel and the
lower part is just dirt and debris and dust right now. But it could
strengthen so we need to get out of here real soon here. So we’ll
send it back to the studio.
Thanks, Greg. You better get out of there and head to safety.

If you ever see a tornado or hear tornado sirens, you need
to get inside a house and into a BASEMENT. That is the
safest place to be.
If you don’t have a basement or can’t get to one you should
 Go to the most INTERIOR portion of your home,
workplace or school.
 STAY AWAY FROM DOORS AND WINDOWS, flying
debris is the main cause of injury during tornadoes.
 BATHROOMS are good hiding spots because the
plumbing helps strengthen the walls.
 COVER YOUR HEAD with a pillow or cushion if you
have one available.
REPORT
LOGO
(NO CLICK NEEDED,
THIS SLIDE
AUTOMATICALLY
COMES ONTO SCREENS
AT THE END OF THE
LAST FIELD REPORT.)
If you can’t get inside you want to
 get as LOW AS POSSIBLE. A ditch is a good place.
But the best is to get inside and into a basement.
* * * * * * * * *
Well, just as tornadoes can form quickly, they can dissipate just
as quickly. Let’s check in with Jennifer Moss Logan to see what
is up with the storm.
This is Jennifer Moss Logan once again for Weather Central.
L/R SCREENS: Jennifer
Whooo! That was quite a storm but the storm is moving out away Moss Logan – All Clear
from Denver and breaking up as it goes. As you can see the
FIELD REPORT
cloud tops are getting lower as the storm is weakening. And
there’s a beautiful rainbow in the Eastern sky. We’ve got a
gorgeous evening ahead of us.
This is Jennifer Moss Logan signing out.
p13 of 14
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Thanks, Jennifer.
Whew, that WAS quite a storm.
But, luckily for us, we know so much more now about the
weather, thanks to SPACE TECHNOLOGY.
I already mentioned that the GOES satellite orbiting in space
gives us . . .
. . . visible images of the clouds . . .
. . .as well as Infrared images.
It can also track hurricanes in the Atlantic . . .
. . . and follow tropical storms as they move around the world.
Even little things, like the GPS unit that Greg used to tell where
he is . . .
. . . works because he is getting signals from satellites in orbit
which can pinpoint him anywhere on Earth.
L/R SCREENS: GOES
satellite illustration
L/R SCREENS: Visible
satellite map
L/R SCREENS: IR satellite
map
L/R SCREENS: Picture of
Hurricane Andrew tracking
(looks like 3 hurricanes)
L/R SCREENS: Map with
black lines showing storm
paths
L/R SCREENS: Greg
holding GPS
L/R SCREENS: GPS
satellites in orbit
In fact, even the weather balloons have GPS units inside them so
scientists know exactly where they are.
There are even satellites which can measure the temperature of
the oceans. When they see temperatures that are warmer than
normal, that could mean an El Niño, which can have effects on
the weather throughout the globe.
L/R SCREENS: weather
balloon launch
L/R SCREENS: El Niño
false color map
But the biggest change from the space age is the way we look at
the world.
It’s as if you spent your entire life watching football games from
the sidelines. You can sort of tell what’s going on out there.
Then, one day, you take a look from high in the stands. “Oh, so
that’s what’s been going on.” You can see patterns that you
could never see before.
The same is true with looking at the Earth from space.
We no longer think of the weather as just what’s going on in our
own backyard. We now can see that our weather is part of the
weather pattern that covers the entire planet. And we can
L/R SCREENS: GOES map
of entire Earth
p14 of 14
understand the weather in a way that we never could before.
Thanks for coming to the show.
L/R SCREENS: Closing
Theme Music
This is XXXXX, and this is DMNS Weather Central.
L/R SCREENS: Credits
BONUS
L SCREEN: Marty Coniglio
Hail Field Report
R SCREEN: Behind the
scenes studio video of same
Hail Field Report