Atmospheric scientist Perry Samson was doing field work when he was surprised by a tornado, making him one of the few people to survive to tell the story.
By Perry Samson & The conversation in the United States
A tornado seen in Nebraska in 2011.
Mike Hollingshead/Getty Images
The following essay is reproduced with permission from 
The conversationan online publication covering the latest research.
Can a person survive inside a tornado? – Sophia, 14, Greencastle, Indiana
I saw the center of a monster. Most people describe the sound of a tornado as that of a freight train, but up close it’s more like a thousand screaming jet engines. I am one of the few people on Earth who experienced a tornado and survived to tell the story.
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Although it may sound like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster involving a high-tech armored truck, my experience was far more dangerous and terrifying.
I am an atmospheric scientist who studies tornadoes, but I’m only alive today because of split-second decisions and a huge amount of luck. Trust me, I never want to be in this situation again.
The day the sky broke
It started in northwest Kansas, where I was study supercell storms – the kind that produces tornadoes – with a team of students from the University of Michigan.
We were placed in a storm so dark that we had to turn on our vehicle headlights in broad daylight. Suddenly a tornado formed and began charging directly towards us.
The students were in other vehicles and fled, but my car was quickly engulfed in a cloud of flying debris so thick I couldn’t even see my own hood.
With my options gone, I made a desperate move: I turned the car directly into the wind, hoping the vehicle’s aerodynamics would keep us pinned to the ground rather than being toppled like a toy.
The physics of fear
When you’re inside the vortex of a tornado, your body feels things that news cameras can’t capture:
The change in pressure: A tornado is a localized area of rapidly changing pressure. Your ears don’t just “pop”: they hurt, like your head is being squeezed by giant hands.
The solid wind: We measured wind speeds of nearly 150 mph (241 km/h) nearby, but inside the vortex they were likely much higher. HAS these speedsthe air hits you with the force of a solid object.
The soup of darkness: In films, the “eye” is a clear space. In reality, it’s a ball of debris – a brown-black soup of pulverized earth, trees and buildings. It was so dark that my camera couldn’t even record a photo.
As debris crashed into my windshield, I was terrified of being crushed by flying material: tornadoes can pick up fences, wood and metal from buildings, tree branches and even cows. Textbook advice says to enter a ditch so you lie flat and might be better protected from flying debris. But the wind was so strong that I couldn’t even open the car door. I just stayed low and prayed.
The making of a monster
How can such a violent storm occur? It takes a perfect and violent recipe atmospheric ingredients:
Fuel: A tornado needs hot, humid air (water vapor) close to the ground with dry air above. This creates the potential for air to risebut only if the atmosphere is unstable enough to overcome “the ceiling”.
The cap: A thin “inversion layer Stable air acts like a lid over this warm, humid air, bottling it until the moist air passes through.
The dry line: The dry line is where warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico meets dry air from the west. Hot, dry air moving forward is actually heavier than stuffy air, and this dry air pushes moist air upwardsdisturbing the cap.
Wind shear: Surface winds from the south and upper altitude winds from the west create a horizontal rolling movement in the atmosphere. When air is pushed upward, this rotation becomes vertical, creating what is known as a mesocyclone.
The jet stream: About 5 to 7 miles (8 to 11 kilometers) of climbing, the jet stream is a rapidly moving river of air. Disturbances inside can create zones that pull air upward from below and reduce pressure at the surface.
Together, these ingredients can create the powerful rotating vortex you know as a tornado.
These storms can have winds up to 300 mph (482 km/h) and leave a long path of destruction, sometimes more than a mile (1.6 km) wide. They can stay on the ground for a few seconds or several minutes, tearing apart buildings and trees in their path. It’s hard to predict where they will travel, so get safe should be a priority.
The Monster’s Lesson
Once the storm passed, the silence was overwhelming. My rental car was stuck in the mud, the antenna was bent in half and pieces of straw were embedded in every seam of the car body.
Tornadoes are extremely dangerous. Sixty-one people were killed by tornadoes in the United States in 2025and many others were injured by flying debris. Make sure to know what to do When a tornado warning sounds, follow the warning’s advice and move to safety immediately.
When scientists chase storms, they’re not trying to observe tornadoes – they’re trying to measure small-scale processes inside storms that can’t be observed otherwise. Many of the key processes that produce tornadoes occur a few hundred meters from the ground and evolve in minutes, meaning radar, satellites and weather stations often miss them.
Seeing a tornado and the damage it causes is a powerful reminder that people don’t control everything. This serves as a warning to be wise and ready for anything. Sophisticated research using drones and radar is the smart way to study these monsters – seeing them from the inside is definitely not.
Willa Connolly, a student at Tappan Middle School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, contributed to this article.
Curious children is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.
This article was originally published on The conversation. Read the original article.
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