Parker Pate Discovers her Love for Tornados at a Young Age
- Feb 5
- 5 min read
By Anna Saakov
Parker Pate has been interested in weather (mostly tornados) from a young age due to hearing stories from time to time while growing up in Alabama, from a real-life story told by her grandparents to an interest that's still growing. She studies a lot of tornados from small ones to big and informs her friends when bad weather comes. She enjoys sharing her knowledge about tornadoes.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
What is your name and age?
I am Parker Pate, and I am 17 years old, almost 18, scary scary.
What got you interested in learning about weather?
Okay, so it very first started, and this is as far back as I remember. It started when I was about four or five years old and there was a large destructive EF4 out of EF5 and the damage was insane where my grandparents live, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and growing up I would always hear stories about it and I just kept asking for more and more stories. It just interests me the way that my grandmother talked about it as it's just unlike anything else.
So, I read a couple of books about it, and then from there on, I just sort of thought to myself. It started from that and watched storm chasing videos and whatnot, and it slowly progressed into trying to involve myself in that aspect.
What was your favorite story that your grandma told?
It wasn't exactly a story, but it was the most memorable day. See it wasn't a story because it was in a chronological order like this happened, then this happened, then that, but I'll start from the beginning.
It was a bright and sunny day and when its bright and sunny that means something horrible...and just for severe weather that's horrible, because it's bad for the storm feel but it was a bright and sunny day and my grandfather just knew something was wrong. He was also involved in weather. Not a lot, just a little bit, and so he closed up his shop and told my grandmother something wasn't right, so they went back to the house. My step cousin and her mom were there too as we just started playing Jinga and just relaxed until the sky started getting really, really dark almost midnight like and just scary, as the wind started to slow down and just stay still.
My Grandma and grandpa then turned on the weather channel, and he was saying something was starting to happen as about 5-10 minutes the tornado sirens start going off as everyone started going down to the basement as we stayed there. The aftermath as they got up from the basement and my cousin wanted to go home and she lived in Selma at the time which is an hour from Tuscaloosa so their driving home and the damage was just horrible. Everything was flattened, there were no trees in sight, and everything was bad.
How long did it take you to learn about all the weather programs?
At the moment I am using X/Twitter and Blue Sky to learn, that's how I started learning the terms. I use both and I follow Nash Severe which is the reason why I have blue sky and twitter and they helped me so much because they simplify things, but they get you involved. They tell you sheer, instability, cape, etc., so I use that and for my main thing I use radar scope and pivotal weather to find unstable cape and stable cape because the most cape there is to find how big tornados are.
What is your favorite tornado?
Probably since it's the first tornado I've ever learned about and I heard stories from it is April 27, 2011, Tuscaloosa Tornado.
What more do you know about the tornado?
Well, it was categorized as an EF4, but it should have been categorized as an EF5 because the wind speeds were equivalent to that. But the damages as that's how the EF scales work there nor graded on wind speed exactly there are more so graded on damage. So, if there’s an empty space of land and an EF5 touches down and the EF5 wins it'll be counted on that there was no damage done so it would be an EF0 or EF1.
Why do you find specifically tornados so interesting to study?
I mean it’s just always been there for me.
Do you think you go to college as a meteorologist?
Yes, of course. I’m also still unsure completely what I want to do because I have an IEP in math however it's going to take a lot of work hard and effort to get on track with hat but I do want and if I don't do it for my current, which it is my major but if I don't go through with it I want to do law but I have a better background in meteorology.
Do you have any least favorite tornadoes? Any that you found uninteresting?
Well, I mean every tornado is interesting cause I mean there's not like a bad tornado. I will say the most odd like I don't like exactly are stove pipe ones when all the dirt has already gone up as it's not really pleasing to look at.
What do you know about the “Dead Man Walking” tornado?
I can't remember exactly but it killed a lot of people because it was not moving it was just staying in place for a good, I'm pretty sure 1o to 15 minutes but it killed a lot of people, and it was scary. It's been trademarked as if you see it then you're dead already, but it's just like. So ominous.
Is that the most deadliest one you know?
No, I would say the deadliest one that I know of and is popular is April 26th to 27th, 2011, one with about give or take a 300-tornado touchdown in those two days so definitely to be a weather outbreak.
What is your pet peeve you have about weather?
One thing that is my pet peeve about tornado outbreaks is that when severe weather outbreaks are when people when I tell they don't take it seriously. Like when Meteorologists “hype up” a severe weather outbreak and it doesn't happen weather cannot be predicable it is completely unpredictable.
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There could be the worst thing predicted then we just got light rain. I don't know if it makes me upset when people don't take it seriously.
