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The suck zone! [Storm Chasers on Discovery]
Chimera
Monster girl with a snek tail and five eyesBad puns, that's how eye roll. Registered User regular
Monster girl with a snek tail and five eyesBad puns, that's how eye roll. Registered User regular
Anyone else watch this show? I happen to know most of the cast members and chase storms on the show and so it is fun to watch it and compare it to what it was like to actually be there on those storms.
While the show is a fairly accurate depiction of what really happens out in the field there are some things that are over dramatized. A prime example of this was the drama between the TIV and Vortex 2 last year.
The show is on every Sunday on Discovery Channel at 10eastern and pacific and at 9 central in the US.
While the show is a fairly accurate depiction of what really happens out in the field there are some things that are over dramatized. A prime example of this was the drama between the TIV and Vortex 2 last year.
The show is on every Sunday on Discovery Channel at 10eastern and pacific and at 9 central in the US.
Chimera on
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My general opinions:
Reed is kinda a dick, but I can't help but like him
The main dude with the doppler truck (John?) is pretty much just a dick
The IMAX guy is a bit of a screw up, but he seems pretty passionate about it, so I find myself rooting for him
Do people really chase across entire states? How the hell do they do that without breaking the law?
I don't think it's illegal to chase a tornado, just generally monumentally stupid. As far as I know they don't break speed limits (much) or drive recklessly. I think most of the "chasing" is getting to where a tornado might form. Once one is on the ground, it usually doesn't last long so they don't really try to follow it. If they're close enough they'll try to get in it's path, but that's about it from what I've seen.
Once the tornado is on the ground we do not try to get in the path. That is something unique to this show. Getting in the path of a tornado is incredibly dangerous and highly unproductive for what we try to do as chasers. The primary thing chasers do is provide real time ground truth to the National Weather Service. Getting run over and immobilized or killed by the tornado is counter productive to this. Most of the radar sites are very spread out and often cant see low enough in the storm to see if the rotation is low enough to produce a tornado. There are also times where the mesocyclone (rotating updraft of a supercell) is not very deep and the radar just cant see it by overshooting the top of it. By using real time reporting via phone, ham radio, internet based reporting systems like Spotter Net, and live streaming video, chasers are able to help increase the accuracy of warnings that the NWS produces.
The way we recoup our costs and at times make a profit is via video sales. We sell our footage and live streams to the local and national media outlets as well as provide interviews, post storm coverage, and stock footage to production companies that make shows like the one this thread is about.
Many of us chasers are also trained first responders and off duty emergency officials as well as active volunteers with CERT and Americorps, and the Red Cross. Once an area is hit we will turn around and do what ever we can to assist the communities impacted by the storm. Most avid chasers do more than just cover tornadoes. I cover everything from tornadoes to hurricanes to ice storms to blizzards. I have even done some work covering floods and wild fires.
There are also researches that chase storms. Most of what you see on the show is fake science for the entertainment of the show. TWISTEX is doing legitimate work, as was Vortex 2, but the air canons and radar that Reed stuck on top of his big red shoe (The Dominator) is just for show. Last year I was apart of a field team that was working with the NSSL (National Severe Storms Laboratories) on project HailSTONE (Hail Spatial and Temporal Observing Network Effort) in which we were trying to gain the highest resolution of physical hail data ever recorded. In fact on that project I was able to collect the largest hailstone ever recorded in the state of Oklahoma.
You may say what we do is stupid, and to each their own, but I disagree.
No, Twistex was around doing research before Reed even started chasing. Tim Simaras is one of the most experienced and respected chasers there are.
I meant for your general citizen, chasing a tornado is stupid, not for actual trained storm chasers. No offense meant, I fully respect what you do.
Well, I meant was that who he joined, the guy with the big teeth, but I may be confusing it with something else.
I should probably just stop posting.
Oh yes you are correct here and it is becoming a massive problem. When I started out you would have a hand full of trained spotters and chasers on each storm but thanks to the popularity of the TV shows and the live streams there has been a massive explosion of people trying to imitate what we do for the thrill of it. This is causing nightmares for emergency crews, the media, the researchers, and the spotters. Just look at this photo of a chaser convergence from 2009 near Oregon, MO....
...and it has only gotten worse.
Nono, you are fine. Keeping track of who is who can get confusing.
Tim and his TWISTEX team was the last of the three teams to join the show. The three teams are not affiliated with each other and the only two that but heads (with good reason) is TIV (IMAX crew) and TVN (Reed Timmer).
Here are some photos of the team to help you identify who is who....
Sean Casey and his TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle). This is the IMAX crew.
-Sean Casey (IMAX producer/TIV owner)
-Brandon Ivy (Lead forecaster)
-Marcus Guetierrez (Driver and lead medic)
Reed Timmer and TVN's Dominator.
-Reed Timmer (Lead forecaster, TVN CEO, loud mouth)
-Joel Taylor (Driver)
-Chris Chittic (I honestly don't know what he does other than hold the camera sometimes.)
Tim Simaras and TWISTEX (Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes EXperiment)
-Tim Samaras (Owner of TWISTEX, structural engineer, principle investigator, veteran chaser.)
-Tony Laubach (Not seen on camera in the 2011 season, but is still part of the field team.) (Professional chaser, meteorologist, bearer of good luck with his red skins jersey that he never not wears during a chase.)
-Carl Young (Tim's right hand man, driver, meteorologist, and co-forecaster.)
-Matt Grzych (Atmospheric scientist and researcher, systems developer.)
And..... here is the rest of the TWISTEX team and vehicles which most of are just off camera during the filming of the show.
Hope this helps, let me know if anything else is confusing you.
When everyone (but I especially single Reed and the TVN team out for this) run around saying, "We're doing science! We're collecting data that we can pass on to home manufacturers so that they'll better understand how to build tornado-proof houses!" ... isn't that complete bullshit? Houses get destroyed by tornadoes because they're immobile windsocks that are subjected to 150mph+ winds. It's not that much of a mystery. Or am I completely wrong and is that a legitimate rationale for research?
Good question, the answer is yes and no. While the only way to truly build an above ground structure that can withstand the strongest of EF5 tornadoes is to build a concrete and steel structure that can withstand the winds of the outer fringes of a nuclear blast. That said there have been great strides in making stronger homes that cost less to make and will take more abuse. A good way to show this is the decrease in EF5 tornadoes. The EF scale and the old F scale rate the damage that a tornado has done, not the actual winds. Another sign is the need for the EF (Enhanced Fujita) scale. It was the replacement of the old Fujita scale and was needed to modernize the damage indicators for today's stronger built structures and to broaden the number of indicators there are to make it easier to identify how strong a tornado was. The other thing it did was adjust what wind speeds did what to a structure/ landscape/ vehicles.
With that said it is time to answer your question. Reed is blowing hot air when he is saying that and TWISTEX and Vortex 2 are actually conducting real research and science in the hopes of helping engineers build stronger structures for less cost and broaden out understanding of how tornadoes form and of the storms that spawn them.
That Tony guy always weirds me out because he looks reeeeeally familiar to me and I can't figure out why.
Joel and Reed have split several times over Reed being a jackass. One of the times that he split while filming the show he briefly went off and chased with the old scout driver, this was on May 13th, 2009. They decided to chase near Tonkawa, OK and got a nice rain wrapped cone tornado. I was up in Kirksville, MO that day near where TWISTEX and Reed were. If you watch that episode you can actually see some of my footage. The part where they show Tim and Tony look out their windows and then almost get hit by the tornado was filmed by me. Due to how wrapped with rain the tornado was you could only see it from a few hundred yards away, while Tim and Tony got almost as close as I was they were unable to get any usable footage of the tornado so Original Productions bought my footage and used it for this episode. Most of the tornado shots that day are mine.
Is they guy you know also a die hard redskins fan? Tony lives in Denver but frequents Texas during the chase season, though he mainly stays in the pan handle and northern Texas.
I doubt I've ever met him (though I guess it's possible, I lived in the Dallas area for a few years). He's probably just reminding me of someone I know or a celebrity or something, but it's pretty strong.
It should be interesting to see how they handle "the jungles," which includes the heavily forested mountains of Arkansas. It will also be interesting if they are forced to condense the outbreak to just one or two episodes since the show's season is so short and there were so many large outbreaks this year. The show hasn't even gotten into May yet and thus has yet to get into the true meat of the tornado season.
The late 2011 Super Outbreak would cover 21 states and spawn 4 EF4 tornadoes and 11 EF4 tronadoes including the ones that destroyed much of Birmingham, AL, Tuscaloosa, AL, Cullom, MS, and many more communities. Here is a shot of the Tuscaloosa EF5 as it moved through the city....
If you guys want to know more about the meteorology behind this event or just more about it at all, let me know.