UPDATE: I have a “before” picture of the vehicle now, posted below.
UPDATE2: Perhaps storm chasing has reached a tipping point.
Respected Tornado Reseacher And Storm Chaser Among Dead In Oklahoma | FOX17online.com
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — Family members and members of the storm chasing community are confirming that well-respected tornado researcher and storm chaser Tim Samaras is among the eleven confirmed victims of Friday’s tornado that ripped through El Reno, Oklahoma. Samaras was one of the most well-known and respected tornado researchers in the world and had made many appearances on television shows like the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers and was a regular contributor to shows on National Geographic.
The day that should change tornado actions and storm chasing forever
Update 9:30 a.m., June 2: We now hear that “veteran storm chaser Tim Samaras; his son, Paul Samaras; and chase partner Carl Young, are among those killed by Friday’s EF-3 tornado in El Reno, OK.”
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In the midst of all the tragedy unfolding in Oklahoma, media and storm chasers have been swarming all over the tornado outbreak. I’ve seen this many times in my years in television news: when you are tasked with going live, sometimes common sense gets literally thrown to the wind.
The Weather Channel lost sight of reality today, trying to get close to get the best footage for live coverage, and paid the price. Fortunately, they weren’t killed. Just last year, the TWC ran this segment by TWC meteorologist Mike Bettes, where he asked:
Mike Bettes’s Open Mike Discussion “Storm Chasers, Have They Gone Too Far?”
And it seems, Mike Bettes doesn’t listen to his own advice. Watch:
From TWC’s report on the incident:
Meteorologist Mike Bettes was chasing the monster rain-wrapped tornado near El Reno, Okla. when he says the storm picked up the heavy chase SUV and threw it an estimated 200 yards.
“We were ahead of the storm. We stopped to broadcast and I saw a large violent wedge tornado,” Bettes said in a live phone interview after he established phone connection after the incident.
“What we were trying to do was just get away from it and get to the south side of it,” Bettes said. “But what ended up happening was all three of our vehicles that we chase with were all hit by it.”
Basically, he put his team so close, he couldn’t get away from it.
And, he should know better. From the videos I’ve seen, this appeared to be a multiple vortice tornado, with a central core surrounded by other vortices (typically 3 or 4). Sometimes these outer vortices are intermittent and invisible.
Trying to dodge multiple vortices in the middle of live TV is of course a recipe for disaster.
h/t to Firsthand Weather
UPDATE: Before the tornado caught it, all blinged out:
Image by Kevin Parrish of NBC News
Thanks for the clip. Just watched 1:35 minutes of TWC. That brings my total for the last 5 years up to 1:35 minutes.
CodeTech — Thanks for the link.
A couple of questions, anyone:
Is there a more likely time of day for the occurrence of a powerful tornado?
The distinct dark/black color of the vortex will wax and wane at ground contact yet wind/circulation appears to continue. Is the dark region entrained water? If so, would the kinetic energy of this entrained water be a significant factor as to why the ground destruction in a tornado will seemingly destroy every thing in its path yet skip over a couple of homes. I guess what I’m suggesting is that 200 mph water would have more destructive force than 200 mph air.
The awesome force of nature and convection.
As far as the “thrill seekers”, I would be one if given the chance.
I’ve seen varying reports of this ill-fated flight by the Wrong Brothers. Some say the vehicle was thrown 200yds, while others claim it rolled 200ft. Based on the TWC footage of the aftermath, I tend to favor the latter estimate. It didn’t seem to be resting that far from the road. That–and the vehicle would likely resemble an accordion after being tossed two football fields’ distance downfield. Glad they lived to hype–I mean tell–the tale, though!
Luther may very well be one of those who don’t have power this morning. The last time I heard, there are more than 100,000 people without power.
Bettes and crew are so lucky, I’ve seen vehicles like his thrown into 345 KV power line towers, dumpsters thrown through brick and concrete wall 3 stories above the ground and 2X8’s through steel-belted radial car tires. These tornadoes are nothing to take lightly, they might drop a boat or a house on you.
I was watching coverage of this storm from local chasers on KFOR in OKC as it was developing. The reason why these chasers got caught in this storm is that it made a nearly 90 degree sudden turn. Now these storms do wobble somewhat and a little movement either side of the general path is expected but what this storm did was unusual. That is why it caught FIVE chase vehicles by surprise, not just the WxCh guys. The KFOR chasers are some of the most experienced at this on the planet and they are extremely familiar with the local Oklahoma region and the behavior of storms there. I was watching video of one of their chasers barreling down a dirt road IN REVERSE in their desperation to get away from this storm. They got away but not without the loss of the rear windshield of their vehicle from hail or debris. Some of the hail associated with that storm was the size of softballs.
The point I am making here is not to get the idea that the WxCh chasers were being unusually reckless in their observation of this storm, this storm did something very unusual. It completely changed its direction of travel and the chasers did try to “bug out” of the area just as soon as they detected this fact. This is one reason why chasers often try to “get behind” these storms but that wasn’t effective in this one because of the massive amounts of rain behind it. Several did try to do just that and I listened to their frustration on live audio as they were getting absolutely hammered by drenching rain and hail.
They could have been risking their lives sitting around eating burgers and chips. I have no problem with either activity at all.
In other words, imagine you are to the north of a storm that is moving in a southeasterly direction. As you travel along its path, you are actually a little behind it. What this thing did was basically stalled and then turned right into the chasers. The entire mesocyclone completely changed its track from moving in a ESE direction to a NNE direction in the space of about a minute. The storm stalled, stopped its easterly progress, and ran back up to I-40 before turning east again and dissipating near El Reno. It had been heading toward Chickasha from roughly the Clinton area when it suddenly turned somewhere south of Hinton and started heading back up to I-40. If you look at a map of Oklahoma tornado tracks, it is unusual to find one that makes such a hard left turn for such a long distance and then makes a hard right again. I do see one historical track in the 1950’s in the OKC area where a large tornado did change from a southerly to a northerly track but it has probably not happened during the lifetime of any of the chasers there.
Good for them, especially the hunters with data gathering equipment. There are certainly much Less useful ways to risk your life.
This is the real risk living these days in Tornado Alley if there are wind farms nearby:
https://twitter.com/Ginger_Zee/status/340804860519800833/photo/1
As a note to the hunters, 3M makes Scotchshield Ultra Safety and Security Window Film.
Makes glass a whole lot harder to break through.
http://solutions.3m.com/3MContentRetrievalAPI/BlobServlet?assetId=1273660482740&assetType=MMM_Image&blobAttribute=ImageFile
I doubt that this tornado season is or will be the the worst ever. What might make it seem so to some is that we’ll have video made by such fools. They aren’t out to understand tornadoes and help people but are out to make a buck and scare people. (I wonder if Bettes will get a bonus?)
This year’s tornado total is quite low, one of the lowest in recent years:
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/torngraph-big.png
In fact, we are not far above the all time minimum number of tornadoes for the date. This has been an extremely quiet year for tornadoes.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/torgraph-big.png
It is the nature of a weather nut, to do things others think are extreme. I have watched my son get upset if a thunderstorm misses us, even though I tell him if it rips our roof off its a huge problem. This whole situation reminds me of Tom Pettys Song “Dogs on the Run” the Lyric
“Some of us are different theres just something in our blood, theres no need for explanation its just Dogs on the Run”
I have done some stupid things with the weather.. they look stupid now at 57 but they werent at the time. It was “stupid” for me to wrestle a guy in college that outweighed me by 150 lbs, but I can tell you I actually thought I was going to beat him and be a PSU legend ( 46 seconds into the match, that dream ended). Its stupid for me to do heavy squats on my own, but there is something in my blood that says without risk, there is no reward. So lets lighten up a bit on Mike here. What might be stupid to you.. or pushing it too far, or something you WOULD NOT RECOMMEND to others, may be the very things that is in a persons nature. As long as he is not hurting anyone else, he has the freedom to make his own choice.
ONE of dumb things I did in the name of weather: It was not with tornadoes they scare me, but in an effort to get right into the thick of blinding snowsqualls I found myself sliding off a back road toward a 400 ft gap with no guard rail in the middle of nowhere when I was in college.
I would never do that again, but to wrestle for PSU I would do what I did there again.
Like I said, Dogs on the Run
Whew.
Looks like the Weather Channel chasers bagged one…too bad they can’t mount it on a wall.
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New perspective noted.
(To bad you were an amateur when you wrestled!)
PS to Luther Wu. I know I’m not the only that is glad to hear from you.
That was the most amateur move ever! all the other drivers knew to stop short plus its a multi vortex that could put down a suction vortex way past there attempted escape that’s a 1st yr rookie move,lets drive east then south and try to outrun it, also I could be wrong but it looks to me like they just drove off the road and rolled it.if you look at the other vehicles next to them they stayed on path,the red pickup next to them he stopped just as they where driving off the road was there any other lifted and rolled vehicles close to them?
Greetings everyone- thanks for the expressions of concern.
Sorry for the late response- power was just restored in my neighborhood and I’ve been dealing with aftermath of storm. I know how WUWT readers are and I should have checked in sooner, sorry ’bout that.
The sky was shaking. I mean it. Thunder was so continuous that it was a constant bass note like God’s own wall of sound, with attendant vibration- it was almost a solid tone, like a Vulcan gun, only deeper in pitch. A friend twenty miles north of here could hear it.
I cut it too close…should have left sooner. My plan (widely followed in OKC,) was to watch the storm radars/reports until it was clear where the storm track would be and then dodge it. There is little chance of survival of a bIg EF4/5/6 tornado unless you are below ground or out of the way. As we saw tragically last week, above ground reinforced concrete doesn’t amount to much when a Chevy flies through it at 200 mph. Weather stations advised that major roads leading away from the storm’s path were at a standstill, with many folks making a run for it, so I tried to escape over surface streets. Major flooding and heavy hail made that plan difficult. Compact cars were swept into storm culverts, etc. and tree limbs flying around all over the place made it interesting. The tornado was not just huge, but this monster was also oscillating back and forth along about a 4-5 mile North/South arc as it moved along it’s eastward track, putting many people at risk, so many more were trying to evacuate. The track also changed directions completely at least twice, all of which helped jam traffic.
I haven’t watched The Weather Channel in years, as they came to be political with their weather reporting. Nevertheless, I’m not going to lay a trip on their team which got caught out and ruined their ride, as some of the local boys got caught also, and they are the best of the best, with more experience than anyone.
Good to hear from you.
Power? I gather you have your own backup.
@Luther Wu
Yay!
Thanks for the additional details in your report. I’m still in the midst of the evening news in my time zone and they have not covered – at all – the difficulties people encountered during the evacuation. They’re hitting the Weather Channel wreck pretty heavy, but I guess it’s fair that the news channels would be concerned for “their own”.
Never been close enough to one to say, but it must be rather exhilarating when the hunter becomes the prey 🙂
Thanks for that report Luther. My impression from reading the live warnings was that no funnels dropped in the city but hail, heavy rain and straight line winds were still big problems.
2:35 PM CDT in the afternoon …
Atypical behavior; Reason it caught everyone off-guard (The lesson learned should be: “Past performance is no indicator of future progress.” The only safe position for ‘spotting’ would seem be to the Southwest or west of the wall cloud.)
Here are the three (3) main tracks courtesy of KFOR; the first track on the far left (with the jog) is the one we’re discussing:
“Preliminary track map from May 31 tornado outbreak”
http://localtvkfor.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/tracks.jpg?w=660&h=456‘
Saved on tinypic: http://oi39.tinypic.com/2ym9a1u.jpg
… the jog to the ‘left’ was unexpected …
.