THOSE of you who enjoyed the movie Twister: will relish a documentary called Eye of the Storm scheduled for 8.30 tonight on UTV. It concerns tornadoes, those whirling dervishes of meteorology which, because of their extreme violence, are not only the most feared, but also the most photogenic, of all weather phenomena - if you can get close enough to take the pictures and survive.
Tornadoes strike with little warning and bring the most unbelievable devastation in the space of a few minutes. They commonly form within well developed thunderclouds, often near well defined cold fronts, where the advancing cold air has overrun and displaced a much warmer and more humid airmass underneath, thus causing a very rapid decrease in temperature with height.
The Great Plains of the US provide a favourite breeding ground, mainly because that part of North America has the right combination of moist air moving up from the Gulf of Mexico and cold air coming down from the north west. The "twisters" form at the boundary between these two air masses, and on some days 20 or more will be reported in "Tornado Alley" the flat country of the Midwest stretching through Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma. It is here, apparently, that tonight's action has been filmed.
Much of the footage for television documentaries, of this kind is provided by a rare breed of individuals peculiar to the US. "Stormchasers' are enthusiastic amateur meteorologists - or some would say eccentrics who have become mesmerised by, these violent phenomena and who relish for its own sake the flow of adrenalin that comes with close contact with a deadly whirlwind.
They spend their free time cruising the open plains in the eager hope of sightings, thinking noting of driving 600-700 miles to find a promising tornado spawning ground. Storm chasers often try to cover their expenses by providing video pictures and "on the spot" reports to local television channels, so a worthwhile by product of their peripatetic idiosyncrasy has been some of the best television film of these vicious storms.
Tonight's documentary, however, promises even more. It contains, according to the blurb, camcorder sequences that were shot, with a rare presence of mind, by ordinary individuals who have found themselves at some stage in their lives, and through no fault of their own, right in the path of a tornado and who have survived the experience. The name is intended to imply that the film will bring us right into the very heart of such a storm.