May 12, 2011
I saw my first storm chaser. They are called storm chasers, but they are really tornado chasers. I had gotten a text from Sarah the night before and it showed the storm chaser vehicle. I completely forgot about them until I was on my way into town and I saw the vehicle for myself.
the tank
It looked like a tank. I am a person that naturally asks questions, and you can bet that I had millions of questions running through my head. BUT, I was by myself and with The Kid. When I was watching them, I never saw another woman. They were all men and very young. I didn’t want to approach them by myself. If I had a guy with me, I would have walked over with no second thoughts. So, I watched them and took pictures from my car. Surely they are used to such behavior. They drive a tank across the country, looking at tornadoes. They have to expect it.
The vehicle was high enough off the ground that another man could sit under it, Indian style and work on the wheel. The dome shaped thing on the roof was a rotating viewing tower. It could rotate all the way around. After reading in the paper today I found out that this particular crew was part of the tv show called “storm chasers”.
(Front side of the vehicle as shown in the Pratt Tribune)
This is the current movie that this team has out in IMAX theaters. Their ad runs on the weather channel website.
I left the parking lot and went about my business in town. During the town visit, I saw two more storm chasing vehicles. Some had advertisements on them. I kind of got worried. I turned the radio to seek and called Wooster. I didn’t know if we were about to be hit by a big storm or what was going on. Then in Wal-Mart, I saw Sarah. She and her husband had talked to the guys the night before. The crews told them that they mainly hang out in an 80 mile radius of pop up cells and Pratt was a good central location for the conditions of the day. Umph…nothing to worry about…right? Right. When I got home I looked up one of the websites that a truck was advertising and saw this:
The little cars that you see are storm chasers. They each have a live video streaming of where they are at. Some of them have live audio too. This particular guy: James StormScapeLIVE was funny. I watched him for awhile, but nothing panned out. Then later on during the day, I watched a crew near Dodge City. I actually saw a tornado! Their screen had the words: IT’s HAPPENING!!!. I didn’t get a good picture of the screen, so I’ll have to wait until another time.
In case you were wondering. We are not located where the rain showers and heavy thunderstorms are on the map above. Condtions are less favorable today for thunderstorms and tornados.
On a side note. I went and visited Matt at the farm and looked down and saw this:
I thought it was a fluke and went home very slowly to let the sensors recalibrate. But it didn’t change for three miles and I was creeping along the road. When I finally hit the blacktop to come home, the temperature went down at 20 degrees every mile I went. When I reached home, the sensor said it was a nice 83 degrees. Matt still thinks it was a fluke. It was hot and with a steady 20 mph wind, it doesn’t feel very hot in comparison to the hot days in Georgia. So, I think it was a hot spot. Or it could have been a fluke.
