Science according to Tara Reid: "There could be a sharknado"

The actress explains to GQ

Published July 24, 2014 10:10PM (EDT)

Everyone, the "Sharknado 2" airing is less than a month away. And the Internet has already started to buzz in anticipation of the sequel to the utterly campy original, "Sharknado."

GQ put together a "Sharknado 2" survival guide courtesy of the cast of the SyFy TV movie. (And then there was this delightfully snarky piece done by the A.V. Club.) In the "guide" there were tips from the likes of Mark McGrath and Ian Ziering, along with some pseudo-science from Tara Reid.

Reid explains that a sharknado -- that's a tornado with live sharks in it, for the uninitiated -- could actually happen. From GQ:

"You know, it actually can happen. I mean, the chances of it happening are very rare, but it can happen actually. Which is crazy. Not that it—the chances of it are, like, you know, it's like probably ‘pigs could fly.' Like, I don't think pigs could fly, but actually sharks could be stuck in tornados. There could be a sharknado."

Well, I'm sorry, Reid, but Purdue University professor Andy Freed said there is no way a sharknado could actually exist. Freed, according to IndyStar, teaches "Geosciences in the cinema" (which sounds like a cool course). In that class, which is for non-science majors, students dissect natural disasters -- what is and is not possible -- through the lens of cinema representations. IndyStar reports:

"Think about hail, Freed said. What’s the limited size of hail? At some point it gets too heavy to be held up by winds.

"The threshold is smaller for a water spout, which needs to pick an object up out of the water. Sharks are too heavy, Freed said, but water spouts can and have lifted up small, minnow-sized fish and carried them hundreds of kilometers away."

Sorry, Tara Reid. Maybe it's possible in Hollywood -- they did, after all, move a house from Kansas to Oz.


By Sarah Gray

Sarah Gray is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on innovation. Follow @sarahhhgray or email sgray@salon.com.

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Movies Science Sharknado Sharknado 2 Syfy Tara Reid Tornado