YOU DON’T HAVE TO PET A RHINO ON HIS HORN
By H.W. Buzz Bernard
To some people it must seem like the Running of the Bulls–chasing tornadoes.
But it isn’t really. In the Running of the Bulls, the beasts are pursuing you, not the other way around. If you’re chasing storms, you’re doing just that; you’re the chaser, not the chasee. You hold the advantage.
In fact, a year ago I would have told you that hot-footing it after twisters was probably safer than driving to work. The big concern in the chasing community then wasn’t that someone would get an express pass to the Land of Oz, it was that someone would get turned into a Crispy Critter by lightning.
Then the tragic events of last spring occurred. An experienced chaser and his crew, researchers no less, found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Attempting to outrun an EF-5 monster, they wound up directly in the path of a violent and exceptionally large (the largest on record) tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma, and met violent deaths.
So there is danger out there, but I continue to maintain it’s minimal if you do things right. Certainly the group I traveled with in the spring of 2012, gathering background for Supercell, did things right. They, a commercial storm chasing operation called Silver Lining Tours, put safety first.
Silver Lining’s president, Roger Hill, told me, “I always have an escape route planned.” In truth, there isn’t a huge advantage in trying to cozy up to twisters. Usually they’re better viewed from afar, through frameworks that lend perspective to them. You don’t need to pet a rhino on his horn to see what he looks like.
People chase storms for different reasons. For some, it’s an adrenaline rush. For others, it’s experiencing nature’s fury and majesty simultaneously. For still others, it’s to shoot photographs and videos, or to carry out research. All, I suspect, have an overarching fascination with weather.
Although the chasers I journeyed with never cornered a twister–or vice versa–it didn’t matter. I rubbed elbows with pros, watched how they operated and listened to their tales. And while tornadoes on my trip proved as elusive as Bigfoot, I managed to get up close and personal with quite a few supercells.
I mean–this is coming from a weather geek now–how many people have ever stood directly beneath a supercell aborning and watched it mature? I did, in a place aptly named Levelland, Texas. As an aside, let me say it’s so damned flat around Levelland it makes most of Kansas look like Rocky Mountain National Park.
Anyhow, there I was, braced against a stiff inflow wind, bolts of lightning lancing into the ground all around me (see Crispy Critter comment above) and loving every moment of it.
We later pursued the storm, by than a full-blown hail beast, into Lubbock. All the while I’m thinking, I gotta get this stuff into Supercell.
I did.
Head on over to Amazon and pick up Buzz Bernard’s books, PLAGUE, EYEWALL, and SUPERCELL (out today!!)
Click on the pictures for a link to Amazon!!
