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Wow, you would never think a hurricane could destroy your entire house. Yeah your house and everything in it

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That'd be just my luck to go to Florida and get stuck in a hurricane

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I just finished entering our notes that we took at Mosey from our problem log

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You can download your own problem log from the NASA Wi-Fi's website

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We have a lot of new information. I think we need to go to the problem board

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We know the tropical depression is now a hurricane. We know that hurricanes generally move from the east to the west

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And we know that water vapor is the primary source of energy that drives a hurricane

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What we need to know is more about the probability that the hurricane will actually hit Florida. Where should we go?

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Let's go talk to Dr. D. I'm sure he can help us out

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Hi, Dr. D

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What are you doing? Working on a tornado box work on hurricanes inspired me to start this project

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Or tornadoes just mini hurricanes on land. Hey guys

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You're showing them my tornado box. Oh cool

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Tomatoes and hurricanes are different from each other

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But it turns out they're very similar in that they're both low-pressure regions and they have counterclockwise wind patterns

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They also both have tremendous energy. I'm concerned if the hurricane is gonna ruin our fun

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How can we predict where we'll hit land?

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That's one of the biggest questions a meteorologist asked to find an answer to this question. They ask such questions as

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Where's the hurricane been?

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They're high and low pressure systems that affect the hurricane and where the speed and directions of the steering winds steering winds

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Yes, those are the winds that push the hurricane a lot. That's a lot of variables

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Remember with the scientific process we have to keep track of all the variables. We're pretty good at making predictions

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Let's see. We have a number of objects

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I want you to pick them up one at a time and see if you can tell which ones will float. That's easy

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I think this Apple will definitely float. I've played bobbing for apples before and I remember seeing the apples float in the bucket

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Yep, I was right you use your previous experience make a prediction

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Hurricane forecasters also rely upon their previous experiences. They look upon what previous hurricanes it in similar situations

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Okay, let's try this golf ball. I think it will flip

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Oops, it's sink. Well, try this bowling ball. I think you made this one too easy

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It will definitely sink because it's too heavy. All right, let's see

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Wow do it a row row, I guess you can't tell just if something will sink or flip

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What are some other ways we can tell if something will sink or flip, you know

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Both the mass and the volume of each object

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If the mass of the object expressed in grams is greater than the volume expressed in milliliters

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It will sink because it's denser than water

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The problem with hurricanes is there are so many variables is a very complex problem

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And even if we knew all the variables precisely, we're not quite sure how they all fit together

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So what do they do?

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Instead of being able to make an exact prediction all weather forecasters can do is to talk about probabilities

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We need to learn more about probabilities. Let's look at an example

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When we flip this coin will come up heads or tails we don't know that's right because it's a random event

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But what's the likelihood that come up heads? I guess it'll come up heads about half the time. That's right

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Probability says it'll come up heads about 50% of the time. Let's try it. I

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Get heads

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tails

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tails

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Another tails wait, it didn't come up heads half the time. Well, that's all right

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It's probably says we do a lot of trials. It'll average out to be 50% Let's keep trying

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Another heads

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tails

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And heads. Yes, it's looking better. I think I remember the weatherman saying last week

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Then it was a 60% probability of rain. Does that mean it's gonna rain 60% of the day?

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No, I think that means that if there are 10 similar days then would rain on six of them

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I think you're catching on hurricane forecast will give the most probable landfall time and location

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They also want to predict the strength of the hurricane the more confident

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They are the higher the percentage of the probability, but can't some of the variables change after they make a prediction you bet

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That's the problem

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For example, the hurricane steering winds slow down the hurricane stalls over very warm water

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By that only change the landfall time and my also the hurricane again is strength

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So, how do they get the exact measurements and how many variables do they have to measure?

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Well, hold on now weather satellites are a great tool for making predictions and tracking hurricanes

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Why don't you talk to me to wrap at NASA Langley Research Center? Just cut an email from her

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She's right now at the Airman Space Center in Hampton, Virginia. I don't live too far from there. I'll ask my mom to take me

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Hi, miss wrap and thanks for meeting us. Sure. What's the problem? We need to learn more about collecting weather data

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Yeah, we're worried about Hurricane Ichabod in the Atlantic Ocean and we want to make sure it doesn't ruin our trip to Florida

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Well, that wouldn't be good. Well weather data is collected in many ways. But one way is by a weather satellite

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What is a weather satellite a weather satellite is a man-made object?

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That's put into orbit around a planet to help gather data all around the globe. It helps improve weather forecasting

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That's just what we need how do satellites get into space

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They're launched into orbit by rockets and sometimes even the shuttle takes them up. Okay, but how do they stay up there?

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Why don't they fall back down the earth?

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Satellites are held in orbit by a force called gravity here. Let's do an experiment. But first I need a ball

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Thanks

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Now pretend that you're the earth and the ball is a satellite and swing it around your head

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This is cool, but satellites don't have strings attached to them, do they? No

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Gravity is the string that holds a satellite in orbit by swinging the ball

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You are giving it forward motion or momentum just like the rockets do for the satellites

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If the string weren't attached to it, it would fly off in one direction

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Oh, I get it

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So if we didn't have gravity the satellites would fly off into space

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Very good. And when the momentum and the gravity are equal the satellites fly off in one direction

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The satellite stays in its orbit I saw on the NASA Langley website that they use geostationary satellites

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But what is geostationary mean?

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Well, if you break the word apart you have geo which means earth and stationary which means fixed at a point

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So a geostationary satellite orbits at a speed that matches the speed of the earth's rotation

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So it always stays over the same latitude and longitude

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Are there other kinds of satellites?

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Yes, there are several types of weather satellites

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But the most common besides geostationary are the polar orbiting satellites

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These constantly circle the earth in an almost north-south orbit

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Why are polar orbiting satellites important? Because they cover the entire globe unlike geostationary

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Satellites that only see the same portion of the globe all the time. How many weather satellites are there?

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Well counting only the geostationary and polar orbiting satellites. There are about 18

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however, there are about

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671 satellites of all different types in space. Wow, that's a lot of satellites. They must be important

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Yes, they are and especially weather satellites

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They help us monitor storm development and track the movement of storms. Are they just used for hurricanes and tropical storms?

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No, they're also used to help our local meteorologists forecast our weather

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This helps them issue warnings for thunderstorms and hurricanes

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We can now see that meteorologists have a lot of help collecting data from satellites

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If you want to learn about a really cool satellite that'll be launched in the future

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You need to go see Bill Smith. That sounds like your man

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Thanks for your help. But first before we go, let's go check out another hurricane room