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Is a ‘sharknado’ even possible? Well, maybe…

Okay, at first glance, I'll admit that I wrote Sharknado off as ridiculous; a masterpiece of silly, 'turn-your-brain-off-and-watch-the-carnage' sci-fi writing. That's pretty much what it is, of course. Thunder Levin, the movie's writer, doesn't exactly put it in those words, but it was close.

Still, while 'shark-filled tornado' is not something that anyone needs to add to their list of things to worry about, Levin put enough thought into it that, at least based on the movie's premise, it can't be entirely written off as 'impossible'.

Firstly, there's been plenty of stories over the years of storms sucking up frogs, fish and other animals, and depositing them miles away. We've all seen, either in terrifying close-up reality or through horrific footage and pictures, just how strong tornadoes can get. They can tear apart buildings leaving nothing but the foundation, and toss cars, trucks and farm equipment like they were toys. Picking up a shark, or even several sharks, isn't going to be much of a problem for something that can do that.

[ Related: Powerful storms, tornadoes tear through Saskatchewan, Manitoba ]

In the efforts to debunk the possibility of the 'sharknado', some have pointed out that tornadoes don't form over water; they form over land. Also, they've said that waterspouts, which do form over water, aren't powerful enough to pick up something like a shark. There's nothing to dispute there. Those things are all true.

However, here's how Levin describes the movie's premise (in an interview with io9):

In the movie an unprecedented hurricane sweeps up the Pacific coast from Mexico towards L.A. driving all the sharks in this part of the ocean before it. The hurricane floods the streets of L.A., which is woefully unprepared for a hurricane. (Up to this point, it’s all fairly accurate and something we should be thinking about, disaster preparedness-wise). Naturally these floodwaters are filled with sharks! And then, as often happens, the hurricane spins off tornadoes over the ocean. As anyone would expect, the tornadoes suck up thousands of sharks. This all just seems like common sense to me…

Undoubtedly, he's being sarcastic at the end there, but the scenario he's describing does add up... sort of. A powerful hurricane could cause a storm surge and it could have strong tornadoes spawn because of it. Such strong tornadoes would pick up anything in the water, including sharks (if they were there). So, that much (at least) is possible.

Now, there are things to debunk about the movie.

Such as, it's very doubtful that any sharks sucked up into the tornado would survive the trip for there to be any kind of danger of people becoming an on-the-go snack for them. Anyone in the area would have to worry about them being a large, heavy object tossed at high speed by violent winds, though.

Also, throwing a bomb into a tornado isn't going to do anything to it. It's estimated that the EF5 tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma contained more energy than an atomic bomb. It's not going to notice the explosion of a few sticks of dynamite.

As for the storm being 'caused by global warming', well, it's never that simple. Was Hurricane Sandy caused by global warming, or by climate change if you prefer that term? Not likely. Was its strength enhanced? Was its path diverted? Was it sustained longer than it would have normally survived? A strong case can be made for 'yes' for all three of those.

So far, Los Angeles has never had a hurricane or a tornado. If the weather patterns shifted so that the city not only had a powerful hurricane come onshore there, but also a storm surge and tornadoes spawned from the hurricane, I'm pretty sure we'd have a case for saying that global warming played a strong role in that event, too.

[ Geekquinox: Hot, sticky weather settles in over Ontario, Quebec, and Eastern Canada ]

So, if you see Sharknado, just relax and enjoy, and we'll see if there's any possible sequels that will come out of it... because 'tsharknami'... totally possible.

(Sharknado poster courtesy: Wikipedia)

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