Vince_Condella's Blog

I'll be the first to admit I have mixed emotions about people going out and chasing and photographing storms.  On the one hand, I love to see the cool pictures and video.  On the other, I realized most of them are non-meteorologists without proper knowledge of storm structure and are putting themselves at great risk.

As you probably know, storm chasing has become quite a sport these days.  The move "Twister" probably added many people to the storm chasing roster.  That movie, by the way, was so meteorologically inaccurate that it would take a long list to reveal all of the errors.  The scene with the cow flying by the window of the car comes to mind.  Bad science but good special effects.  By watching that movie, most people are convinced you can drive up alongside a vicious tornado without consequence.

In reality, you can't get that close to a real twister, even a small one.  But the special effects were outstanding and that's what Hollywood uses to put people in the seats of the movie theater.  It also got more and more people to take to their vehicles and crisscross the Plains of the United States in spring, searching for the elusive twister.

Storm chashing has also become quite a business.  Consider that there are a number of companies that will take you and up to a dozen other strangers across the fruited plain in a cramped van for a week searching for tornadoes.  There is Windswept Tours (http://www.chasetours.com/index.html) and Storm Chasing Adventure Tours (http://www.stormchasing.com/) to name just two.  Do a Google search of storm chasing tours and you'll get the idea.  Obviously, these tours can't guarantee you will see a tornado, but they will do everything they possibly can to get you close to one.  And that usually means a lot of driving, which is what storm chasers have to do.  Putting on 500 miles a day is not unheard of if that's what it takes to get to a developing squall line before sunset.

Technology has now partnered with storm chasing.  A new venture called Severe Studios  (http://www.severestudios.com/) is up and running and putting live streaming webcam video of storm chases on the internet.  Often the quality of the video is amazingly clear.  Wireless internet connections via cell phones make it possible to broadcast live from the road.  I'll admit its pretty cool stuff.

So if you are a fan of severe weather and want to live vicariously through storm chasers, check out the Severe Studios web site.  On a day when severe weather is popping in the central U.S., this will be one busy web site.  Who knows?  Perhaps one day we'll see storm chasing as an Olympic sport.