What a Season!

THE PHOTOS IN THIS POST ARE FROM VARIOUS TIMES THIS YEAR.

It's Leora reporting from back in Boulder, Colorado, where the DOW is once again installed in the hangar and TIV-1 is parked overnight on its way to California. Our shooters are scattered across the USA. The season is over--and what a season it was.

The relentless pace of tornadoes that hit the Midwest during May and June dictated our non-stop chasing. As Josh put it, "Everyone plugged along. It was a mostly veteran crew--by now they're used to our horrible, burn-out style." For all the humor and antics, it's the strong sense of purpose and determination that drives the crew to face risky situations. Yes, we all gasp when we see a tornado of power and beauty. Yet the team that operates the DOW, Probes, Scout and Doghouse is mostly a bunch of meteorologists. They are actually excited by data collection and analysis.

After the season, team members, including Curtis Alexander, who participated in our forecasting from Boulder, analyze data from the radar, vehicle-mounted instruments and Pods. They're gradually answering questions about a phenomenon that over decades has taunted atmospheric scientists. You may find this hard to believe but even the distribution of tornado sizes and velocities is a matter of debate: How many EF0s for each EF5? More importantly, how many tornadoes of town-killer capacity can we expect in an average year? And most crucially for the purposes of prediction--to save lives--how can we anticipate which supercells will produce tornadoes? What precisely sparks tornado genesis???

For Josh, one of the big coups of the year was the intercept we scored in May just outside Ness City, Kansas, during the moments of tornado genesis. We suspected a well-structured supercell would soon generate a tornado--and indeed it did, just as it crossed the road where we'd dropped our Pods. Not only that: Texas Tech had lined the same road with StickNets. And of course, the DOW was scanning. This abundance of data on the birth of a tornado will hopefully yield high returns.

In a year with a lot of fast-moving storms--uncharacteristically even in the month of June--our team played aggressively, getting very close to tornadoes. In theory the TIV represents the ultimate data collection vehicle: What better method than recording velocities from within the vortex? What really happens, though, is that other vehicles are just as prone to finding themselves right beside, or even inside, tornadoes.

Crazily, on the last day, the DOW, Probe 1, Scout and production vehicles faced an oncoming tornado with their escape route blocked. This happened shortly after the DOW scanned the tornado that hit the boy scout camp in Iowa, logging wind speeds of 125 mph. (It's rare to obtain accurate measurements of a dangerous tornado, especially one that causes deaths, as the National Weather Service radars are generally too distant to achieve that level of detail.) No one knew that a group of middle school boys was just up the road. As Byron and Reed pointed out, it was a day of surprise tornadoes that descended unpredictably from supercells embedded in a squall line. Josh says chasing that day was like playing "with a loaded gun." As you all know, tragically there were fatalities in the camp.

For our team, the day luckily ended without serious mishap. Instead Josh, Herb, Karen, Danny and Aaron, Justin and Hannah were pleased to have netted data from very close quarters. The gamble had paid off.

BELOW: Sean in control of a shooter's camera; Hannah in the back of Probe-1 with Herb; Mark downloading Pod data onto a laptop by the back of Probe-2; Andres shooting Danny and Mark as they work on the mast of Probe-2; the DOW and TIV-1

Tune in to Storm Chasers this October! There will be AMAZING footage and action!

Also: Keep your eyes open for the photo gallery we're soon preparing for the Discovery website.

It's been exceptionally rewarding working with the storm-chasing team: scientists, TIV gang, shooters and assorted others. It's also been a huge pleasure writing this blog and reading your comments. Thank you all! This is my last post of 2008, so good luck to all you chasers and viewers!   

Comments

[Khristopher]

It's been amazing keeping up with you guys. Now that the season is over, will we still be seeing posts in it? I hope so!
Can't wait to see everything on TV!

[M.R.]

Thank you everyone for all that you do, putting your lives on hold, leaving your families for months, and putting yourselves at risk so that down the line we may better understand the nature of how, when, and why tornadoes form.

Go home, hug your families, get some sleep, eat great meals. You've earned it.

Best wishes and looking forward to seeing the product of this season.

[richard]

Thank you so much for including me in your quest, even though it was electronic i still felt part of it. Please give my love and blessing to everyone in the crew.

I will definately in two years come out and spend a couple of days with you, that is a promise if you would have me that is?

I hope that the data collected can prevent more deaths and create greater understanding of the world about us. I for one will be sad that the season is over.

Guys well done, even in your failures you created successes.

Look forward to seeing the footage in the fall.

Dont be a stranger

Once and for the last time this year, Watch the Skies and play safe

Rich

[Storm Farnik]

Hi Leora!
It's Storm - the crazy teenage storm chaser who hung out with the Storm Chasers crew and took you to get coffee in Fort Morgan, Colorado on May 21st!
Just wanted to tell you how awesome it was getting to meet and hang out with you, Josh, Sean and the rest of the gang. Even though I just kind of randomly showed up, you guys welcomed me very warmly and treated me with great respect, and I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated that. You guys rock!
I saw the convoy numerous times throughout the season, and at different times was behind, beside or in front of it! I personally wound up seeing 28 tornadoes between May 22nd and June 5th, so my season was extremely successful as well!
I can't wait for October - I'm extremely excited to see all the intense footage and data you guys got!
Warmest regards,
Storm Farnik
Chaser at Large

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