Tornadoes
① Script 文本
In the middle of the United States, spring brings warm, wet air from the south, making things perfect for one of the most extreme weather events on Earth–tornadoes. That’s why this part of the country is called Tornado Alley.
在美国中部，春天从南方带来温暖潮湿的空气，为地球上最极端的天气事件之一——龙卷风创造了完美的条件。这就是为什么这个国家的这部分地区被称为龙卷风走廊。
Some years are worse than others, and 2011 was one of the worst ever.
有些年份比其他年份更糟糕，2011年是有史以来最糟糕的年份之一。
That year, in the town of Joplin, Missouri, a dangerous tornado killed more than 160 people.
那一年，在密苏里州的乔普林镇，一场危险的龙卷风夺走了160多人的生命。
But although we know a lot about the science of tornadoes, we still can’t predict exactly when or where they will happen.
但是，尽管我们对龙卷风的科学知识有很多了解，我们仍然不能准确地预测它们将在何时何地发生。
Josh Wurman is a weather scientist. He and his team are studying how thunderstorms produce tornadoes.
乔什·沃曼是一位气象科学家。他和他的团队正在研究雷暴是如何产生龙卷风的。
Seventy-five percent of thunderstorms don’t produce tornadoes, but twenty-five percent of them do. But which thunderstorms will do it?
75%的雷暴不会产生龙卷风，但25%的雷暴会产生龙卷风。但是哪种雷暴能做到呢?
To answer this question, Josh and his team need to get information from as many tornadoes as they can during the spring. To find the storms, Josh uses a Doppler radar scanner. It can show him what’s going on inside a thunderstorm, which gives him important information about what starts a tornado.
为了回答这个问题，乔希和他的团队需要从春季的龙卷风中获取尽可能多的信息。为了找到风暴，乔希使用了多普勒雷达扫描仪。它可以向他展示雷暴内部发生了什么，这给他提供了龙卷风形成的重要信息。
Josh now knows where to look, but finding the right storm is always difficult. Then, after 1,000 miles of driving, they find the right one. But the team has to move fast because tornadoes come and go very quickly.
乔希现在知道该往哪里找了，但要找到合适的风暴总是很困难。然后，在行驶了1000英里之后，他们找到了合适的车。但团队必须快速行动，因为龙卷风来去非常迅速。
This huge tornado is less than a mile away from the team. Its winds are spinning up to 200 miles per hour.
这个巨大的龙卷风距离团队不到一英里。它的风速高达每小时200英里。
But less than 30 minutes after the tornado appeared, it dies. It was one of more than 1,200 tornadoes in this part of Tornado Alley since the beginning of spring.
但龙卷风出现后不到30分钟，它就消失了。自春天开始，龙卷风走廊的这一地区发生了1200多起龙卷风，这只是其中之一。
② GLOSSARY词汇
Extreme: the worst or most serious, for example, extreme weather condition
Tornado: an extremely strong,dangerous wind that blows in a circle.
Alley: a narrow street between building.
Produce: to cause a reaction or a result.
Doppler radar: a special radar system that can give us information about storm.
Spin: if something spins, it turns around and around quickly.
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