Shadowing Practice: Dominator 3 Tornado Tank ULTIMATE Tour - Learn English Speaking with Video

The inside of a tornado.

Only five research papers in history have data from in here.

And that's why we built this monster.

And everything about this vehicle is custom built.

The way that it looks, the way it operates, the instruments on it, everything is custom built by us.

Five, four, three.

This is real life Twister.

This is the most capable storm chasing vehicle on the planet.

This is the Dominator 3.

And as you can see, there's plenty of space for sponsors.

To study the inside of tornadoes, you can't set up a lab and expect one to come through.

So the best way is to build a lab on wheels and park the gear in the path.

But if the powerful winds get underneath a vehicle, this can happen.

A flip.

So that's why we've got this skirt on the bottom here.

This skirting has been added across the entire base of the outer armor, and that prevents wind from getting underneath the vehicle.

But right here you can see that there's some space where the wind can get underneath.

This is the height that we drive down the highway, but we get in the path of a tornado.

We have a system that lowers the vehicle and drives spikes into the ground, and we're going to show you that outside in a second.

It's this method, and the rocket system will also show you, that have the highest success rate.

So up here, check this out.

This is victim of the real problem of a tornado.

Hold on!

Hold on, Nate!

Flying debris.

This is heavy-duty plastic, and this was shattered and snapped off by a juniper tree inside that last tornado intercepted.

So that leads us to the armor system on the Dominator 3.

This is three-quarter inch steel, and this is what the shell of the Dominator 3 is made of, and we've covered that with this rough surface right here.

This is a Kevlar-based polyethylene, basically a bulletproof vest for the Dominator 3, and anything just bounces right off.

Okay, and over here protecting the lights is a quarter inch polycarbonate plastic that's also bulletproof.

And the Dominator 3 has a double window system.

We have an inner and an outer one for dual protection from flying debris.

So this is a polycarbonate windshield and look closely and you can see all these little dents.

Those are from pebbles moving at speeds of over 150 miles an hour inside of the tornado.

Now I'm going to show you how tough this stuff is.

That's tough.

Dominator tough.

Tornadoes do some weird things.

And recording these events helps to verify and guide other researchers' computer models.

And that's why we want to maximize our chances of getting great footage.

So that's why we've redesigned the entire back end of Dominator 3

and coated every square inch of it with polycarbonate plastic so that you can see up at the tornado,

you can see all angles of the tornado in progress and capture that very valuable high resolution footage.

We can also pop the back open

and there's plenty of room for our scientific gear including our rockets which I'm going to show you shortly.

Also plenty of room for adult diapers,

underwear, but under here these are the muscle and cardio systems of the Dominator 3.

When we talk about raising and lowering the vehicle this is what makes that happen.

Listen to them purr.

And if you go from the air compressors and follow these lines up here, they go up to our door system.

But these doors weigh 800 pounds with all the armor so

if you look up here we've got this complex valve system to support

that weight and to help you push them open from the inside yeah that's our lift system

that helps lift the heavy weight of the door.

And these gall wing doors aren't just for looks.

So when we're close to a tornado, we need to look at the sky.

But also when you're up close to a tornado, you're very near the hail core

and you could easily get a softball sized hailstone coming through the sky and hitting you in the head.

So these doors raise up and they give us added protection from overhead.

While the door is open, you can see the original truck door here

and then you can see all the armor we've added on on the outside, very thick.

Another advantage of the gull wing door system on the Dominator 3 is it fixes a big problem

that we found out with the Dominator 1 and 2.

So imagine you're out chasing a storm with Team Dominator

and you're out looking at a tornado and you have to hop in the Dominator fast.

All right, we gotta go guys, we gotta go.

Oh no, look at that, we can't go.

You actually can't shut the front door until the back one is closed.

It's because of how all the heavy armor fixed together.

So the people in the back might be out panicking, Maybe they're going to the bathroom, but this is a big problem right here.

But now it's fixed on Dominator 3 with the Gullwing lift system.

Pinch it off, we gotta go!

And the last thing before we jump in is I'm gonna show you the engine underneath all this.

Squeak, squeak, goes the Dominator 3.

So the whole reinforced hood of the Dominator 3 comes forward like this, giving us a look at the powerful engine inside.

This is a 6.7 liter turbo diesel engine, And this is what drives the 10,000 pound Dominator 3 at highway speeds of over 70 miles an hour.

And we can also accelerate very fast.

If we have to run from a tornado that's too powerful to intercept, this power stroke engine gives us the pick-me-up to get out of a hard spot.

And believe it or not, this thing gets about 16 to 17 miles per gallon on highway speeds.

And in case we need a pit stop, we get a flat tire, we have these protective flaps that we can lift up and access the wheel.

Heavy duty tires, of course.

All right, let's step inside the Dominator 3 and show you how we get our data.

Yep, eye contact, yep, okay, yep.

Three, two, one, release.

Well, welcome inside the cockpit of Dominator 3.

Good to have you.

Kind of a standard F-350 look from the inside.

See some cup holders, you can put your Mountain Dew energy drink right in here

but you can definitely see a couple things are added we've

got this peak of the armor the peak of the armor

on the hood is designed to funnel the wind up

and over the top of the vehicle so

that you don't get all this debris just slamming into the windshield

and this is where we're putting our updated live streaming panel

because yes we stream live our tornado intercepts and storm chases as it happens

looking in the back you can see

that we removed the bent seats of the ford f-350 and replaced it with three additional captain's chairs.

We pretty much live inside this vehicle.

Comfort is important as well.

100

You got a great storm chase?

101

So our research is divided into two modes, intercepts and rocket deployments.

102

Intercepts are measurements at the ground level of a tornado with the dominator.

103

We actually started with super heavy ground probes that we would drop in the path of a tornado.

104

But after having some tornadoes bend away and miss, we decided to turn the whole vehicle into one big probe.

105

That way we can adjust forward and backwards with the tornado right up until the last second.

106

So when we get in the path of the tornado and it's bearing down on us, I press number one to drop the vehicle flush to the ground.

107

Bingo bingo bongo.

108

So now we're flush to the ground but we want to make sure we're not thrown.

109

So we hit this second switch.

110

The spikes go into the ground about six or eight inches and that anchors us to the ground when the tornado arrives.

111

Then we go to the outer switch.

112

So we're lowered to the ground, the spikes are at, the windows are up, now we're in full-blown intercept mode.

113

Intercepting a tornado is one of the most intense experiences of your life.

114

The winds feel really powerful, so powerful that even dominator is bouncing up

115

and down they make this really low roar almost like a freight train

116

or a really loud waterfall like niagara falls uh the dramatic

117

pressure fall makes it feel like a lot of weight is

118

on the shoulders your eardrums are about to burst out

119

and it happens really fast suddenly the sun is coming out

120

you see the blue sky you see the tornado moving off in the distance

121

and you realize that you survived it

122

and then suddenly you're overwhelmed with happiness you realize

123

that the dominator 3 got its job done and most importantly we know

124

that we collected some incredible data from inside of the tornado.

125

But as rare and valuable as that data is, it's from the ground level, just like those four other research papers.

126

The Holy Grail now is actually getting data above ground level, in the heart of the tornado.

127

It's only been done once, and that's where our rocket research comes in.

128

Team Dominator has spent over 10 years funding different methods trying to get probes inside, but we kept running into one problem.

129

A wall of powerful sinking air surrounding the tornadoes.

130

It would knock our probes out of the sky right before getting inside.

131

But in 2019, we finally settled on a method that would punch through the sinking air.

132

And here is the Team Dominator rocket.

133

Our rocket has two main parts, the rocket itself and this right here.

134

This is the Team Dominator Skyfall sensor, custom made by our science lead, Mark Simpson.

135

We're going to fit this sensor inside the nose cone.

136

We're going to attach a parachute on it, and we're going to get ready for launch.

137

We also have a parachute inside of the rocket.

138

It's all ready to go.

139

So we've got the sensor in the nose cone.

140

We're going to stuff the nose cone on, and now we're ready for launch.

141

To launch a rocket, we need to get in the perfect place in the storm, right in the inflow notch of the supercell.

142

That's where all the wind is flowing in toward the tornado.

143

and we need to be at least a quarter mile away from the vortex.

144

There we go.

145

Rockets attached.

146

So this stop right here is what keeps the rocket in place.

147

We've got the blast plate.

148

That's needed, too, to give the propulsion necessary to launch.

149

And we have these long rods, too, because that stabilizes the flight path early on.

150

And we have the two rocket engines.

151

Now I'm just positioning it to connect the igniters to the engine.

152

That's what provides just a little bit of fire in there to ignite the rocket engine.

153

I'm going to make sure positives on one side and negatives on the other and they don't touch.

154

This is very intense when you know you have an F4 tornado bearing down on you.

155

It's going to stay just to our west.

156

What's marked?

157

Am I connected?

158

We now have continuity.

159

I know that the red and the black are connected properly because the continuity lights are on.

160

Can you close your hands?

161

You gotta stand up and reach out.

162

All right, we are launching in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3.

163

Okay, so now the rocket is flying toward the tornado.

164

It punches through the pocket of sinking air around the vortex.

165

And once inside, the nose cone pops off and the parachute deploys, and it's carried around inside the vortex, just like the movie Twister.

166

And we've got to get after the rocket.

167

So as the probe is getting carried around inside of the tornado, we're immediately getting live data like this.

168

We've got pressure, relative humidity, we've got IMU acceleration, we've got our GPS position.

169

And we even have the data of exactly how the sensor is tumbling around in 3D.

170

But right now we're only getting live data at one time per second.

171

But we actually have to recover the physical sensor to get the super high resolution data.

172

But for the Lawrence to Linville, yeah, four tornado.

173

The tornado carried it over 26 miles away from where we launched it.

174

Mark, is the rocket in the tornado right now?

175

I believe so.

176

How high is it?

177

10,000.

178

10,000?

179

10,000 feet?

180

No, 10,000 meters.

181

Yeah.

182

30,000 feet, guys.

183

And there it is, the yellow.

184

There it is right there, the nose cone.

185

Made it that bright yellow color so you could see it easily.

186

See the nose cone and the parachute?

187

and that is holding the sensor with the valuable data inside. So here it is.

188

The moment of glory here when you retrieve the nose cone.

189

This contains the high resolution data from inside the tornado, the pressure fall, the wind speed, all that 3D information inside,

190

and it's all contained on the sensor in the nose cone.

191

So we're going to head back to the Team Dominator headquarters and show you the data right now.

192

So here's the actual data, the GPS positions of the rocket launch that we had into the Linwood EF4 tornado.

193

These are the first ever data points measured above ground inside of a tornado core flow in history.

194

And so each of these are data points measured at a rate of five times a second.

195

The red is the actual rocket.

196

And so it was going toward the tornado.

197

And then the parachute popped off with the nose cone and the miniaturized sensor.

198

And then it got entrained into the tornado.

199

So if we look from the top, you can see that it did nearly two revolutions around the inside of the tornado.

200

And at the same time, it was measuring a pressure fall of over 100 millibars.

201

That's how you know it was inside the core flow of the tornado.

202

And this probe then rode the mesocyclone up to 30,000 feet before falling to the ground near Leavenworth, Kansas, over 26 miles from the launch site.

203

And we wouldn't have found the probe if we didn't post a picture of it.

204

That's how we found the probe, over 26 miles away from the launch point.

205

And thank you to Matthew and Jeremy for keeping their eyes open

206

and finding that sensor in the lawn of a church in Leavenworth, Kansas.

207

We're going to be doing another video

208

and take a deeper dive into this first ever data collected above ground inside of a tornado.

209

We're also going to talk about our future research plans, launching dozens of rockets into the tornado at the same time, dozens of sensors.

210

That way we can measure gradients in pressure, gradients in temperature, and really get a three-dimensional understanding of the tornado.

211

Storm season is about to get started in a big way.

212

We're going to have several months of severe weather and storm chasing.

213

So be sure to tune in to Team Dominator Live.

214

Dominate that like button.

215

Please subscribe to our channel.

216

All we do is storm chase.

217

We want to do it live.

218

We want to do science.

219

We want to increase awareness for severe weather.

220

Never stop chasing.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Dominator 3 Tornado Tank ULTIMATE Tour”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: tornado, dominator, inside, rocket, ground. This video has 218 sentences and 2590 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:56. The speaker talks at a natural 173 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
tornado noun	/tɔɹˈneɪ.doʊ/	A violent wind in the form of a mobile, rapidly rotating, funnel cloud that has contacted the ground.
dominator noun		A male dominant.
sensor noun	/ˈsɛn.sɚ/	A device or organ that detects certain external stimuli and responds in a distinctive manner.
cone noun	/ˈkoʊn/	A surface of revolution formed by rotating a segment of a line around another line that intersects the first line.
probe noun	/pɹoʊb/	Any of various medical instruments used to explore wounds, organs, etc.
intercept verb	/ɪntɚˈsɛpt/	To stop, deflect or divert (something in progress or motion).
armor noun	/ˈɑːɹ.mɚ/	A protective layer over a body, vehicle, or other object intended to deflect or diffuse damaging forces.
parachute noun	/ˈpæɹəʃut/	A device, generally constructed from fabric, that is designed to employ air resistance to control the fall of an object or person, causing them to float…
underneath adverb	/ˌʌndɚˈniθ/	Below; in a place beneath.
polycarbonate noun	/ˌpɑ.liˈkɑɹ.bə.neɪt/	Any of a range of polymers of aromatic carbonates.
vortex noun	/ˈvɔɹtɛks/	A whirlwind, whirlpool, or similarly moving matter in the form of a spiral or column.
debris noun	/ˈdɛbɹi/	Rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.
spike noun	/spaɪk/	A sort of very large nail.
bulletproof adjective	/ˈbʊlɪtpɹuf/	Capable of withstanding a direct shot by a bullet fired from a gun.
gradient noun	/ˈɡɹeɪdiənt/	A slope or incline.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
bear down on verb		To approach someone in a very determined way.
come through verb		To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway.
burst out verb		To appear suddenly from within something else.
come forward verb		To offer help or information, especially about a crime.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
drive down verb		To cause or force a price, quantity, rate, etc. to decrease.
get out of verb		To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of.
lift up verb		To elevate to a higher position.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

You got a great storm chase?
We've got the blast plate.
It's going to stay just to our west.
Can you close your hands?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	has been added · was shattered · is made
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has been added · we've covered · we've redesigned

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 54 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, we've, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: parachute /ˈpæɹəʃut/, windshield /wɪnˈʃiːld/, flush /ˈflʌʃ/, propulsion /pɹəˈpʌlʃən/, shatter /ˈʃætɚ/
Long words — get the stress right: polycarbonate /ˌpɑ.liˈkɑɹ.bə.neɪt/, continuity /ˌkɑn.tɪˈn(j)u.ə.ti/, accelerate /ɪkˈsɛl.əˌɹeɪt/, acceleration /əkˌsɛl.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, humidity /hjuːˈmɪd.ə.ti/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like tornado, dominator, sensor.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?

building a PC with 180mm case fans