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''Storm Chasers'' is an American documentary
reality Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary. The term is also used to refer to the ontological status of things, indicating their existence. In physical terms, re ...
television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed be ...
that premiered on October 17, 2007, on the
Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Chan ...
. Produced by
Original Media Original Media was an American production company founded in 2002 by Charlie Corwin and Clara Markowicz. The company produced feature films, reality television, scripted television, and digital programming. Some of Original Media's television s ...
, the program follows several teams of
storm chasers ''Storm Chasers'' is an American documentary reality television series that premiered on October 17, 2007, on the Discovery Channel. Produced by Original Media, the program follows several teams of storm chasers as they attempt to intercept ...
as they attempt to intercept
tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, alt ...
es in
Tornado Alley Tornado Alley is a loosely defined area of the central United States where tornadoes are most frequent. The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, ...
in the United States. The show was canceled at the end of its 5th season by Discovery Communications on January 21, 2012.


Overview

''Storm Chasers'' was filmed each year in the central United States (an area known as
Tornado Alley Tornado Alley is a loosely defined area of the central United States where tornadoes are most frequent. The term was first used in 1952 as the title of a research project to study severe weather in areas of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas, ...
due to the frequency and severity of tornadoes occurring there) primarily during late spring and early summer, the time of the most frequent tornado activity (though some episodes of recent seasons have also been filmed in the lesser-known Dixie Alley in the southeastern U.S.). Several teams of storm chasers appear in the series. During the 2007 and 2008 seasons Dr. Joshua Wurman, a renowned atmospheric scientist and creator of the Doppler On Wheels (DOW), teamed with documentary
IMAX IMAX is a proprietary system of high-resolution cameras, film formats, film projectors, and theaters known for having very large screens with a tall aspect ratio (approximately either 1.43:1 or 1.90:1) and steep stadium seating. Graeme ...
filmmaker Sean Casey. Wurman's goal is to collect tornado data in order to improve warnings systems, while Casey's goal is to film footage inside a tornado using his armored Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV). The TIV crew was led by Casey and Marcus Gutierrez, Driver and rescue Medic who took over Ronan's job as driver of the series, and Byron Turk, navigator and a shooter/producer for the show. The TIV was outfitted with weather instruments which collect data from approximately 12 feet above ground that, when combined with the DOW radar imagery and the probe data, can help to give Josh a more complete picture of a tornado's structure. Casey produced/directed his second IMAX feature about tornadoes. The first, ''Forces of Nature'', was released in 2003 with a third of the film dedicated to tornadoes, the other two thirds were dedicated to volcanoes and earthquakes. Ronan is an executive producer on the film entitled, ''Tornado Alley'', with the release on March 18, 2011. Beginning in 2008, the program also began following the team from the website TornadoVideos.Net (TVN) led by meteorology Ph.D. candidate Reed Timmer, Joel Taylor (Driver/Meteorologist) and Chris Chittick (Photographer/Probe Technician). The goal of Reed's small but highly mobile team is to capture "extreme video" as well as scientific data from tornadoes. Timmer's team is known as "Team Dominator" in the show, referring to the name of their own armored chase vehicle, the SRV Dominator. This new season also brought a change to Casey's team, replacing the TIV with the TIV2. The vehicle suffered constant chronic mechanical problems, and was sent for re-modification early in the season, and was replaced with the original TIV. TIV2 did not return from repairs until the middle of the third season. During the 2009 season, the series also documented the
TWISTEX TWISTEX (a backronym for Tactical Weather-Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes Experiment) was a tornado research experiment that was founded and led by Tim Samaras of Bennett, Colorado, US, that ended in the deaths of three researchers in ...
team, led by engineer and veteran storm chaser
Tim Samaras Timothy Michael Samaras (November 12, 1957 – May 31, 2013) was an American engineer and storm chaser best known for his field research on tornadoes and time on the Discovery Channel show, '' Storm Chasers''. He died in the 2013 El Reno ...
, who was killed in 2013 while storm-chasing in
El Reno, Oklahoma El Reno is a city in and county seat of Canadian County, Oklahoma, Canadian County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city population was 16,989, marking a change of 1.55% from 16,729, recorded in the ...
along with his son Paul and fellow storm-chaser Carl Young. The main purpose of the TWISTEX team is to deploy their "turtle" probes into the path of tornadoes and deploy
mesonet In meteorology and climatology, a mesonet, portmanteau of mesoscale network, is a network of automated weather and, often, environmental monitoring stations designed to observe mesoscale meteorological phenomena and/or microclimates. Dry lin ...
vehicles around the twister. Carl Young helps pilot the Probe vehicle while
Tony Laubach Tony Laubach is an American storm chaser and meteorologist. He has participated in several field research projects and is one of the surviving members of TWISTEX. He has been contracted as a severe weather photojournalist for various major telev ...
drives one of the mesonet vehicles, M3. Another addition to Casey's team was the addition of the Doghouse, driven by meteorologists and storm chasers Matt Hughes (died 2010) and Brandon Ivey, who chased as part of the TIV team. The original Scout, PROBE, TWISTEX, and TVN vehicles all carry probes that are designed to be placed in the projected path of tornadoes to collect data and film footage from the lowest 100 feet of the tornado. Before the beginning of the 2009 season, Josh Wurman become one of the leaders of
Vortex 2 The Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (or VORTEX) are field experiments that study tornadoes. VORTEX1 was the first time scientists completely researched the entire evolution of a tornado with an array of instrumentati ...
, a government sponsored tornado research program, which led to massive cast changes. The DOW, Scout, Probe vehicles, along with all personnel except Casey, Turk and Neagle leaving the show's main cast. Vortex 2, Josh Wurman and some of the other cast reappeared in several episodes across Seasons 3 and 4.


Dedications

The episode titled "Dedication" which debuted on November 3, 2010, begins and ends with a dedication to Wichita native Matt Hughes, who had attempted suicide on May 14, 2010 and died twelve days later at age thirty in Valley Center, Kansas. Matt was part of the TIV team, first in the Doghouse and then, in 2010, inside the TIV under Casey's direction. Casey's completed IMAX film ''Tornado Alley'' (opened in March 2011) is dedicated to Hughes. The 2010 season is dedicated to
Yazoo City, Mississippi Yazoo City is a U.S. city in Yazoo County, Mississippi. It was named after the Yazoo River, which, in turn was named by the French explorer Robert La Salle in 1682 as "Rivière des Yazous" in reference to the Yazoo tribe living near the river's ...
as TornadoVideos.Net chased the mile-wide tornado and were among the first people on the scene to help.


Episodes


Chasing groups featured

DOW and Scout were headed by Dr. Wurman in seasons one and two. Wurman and the DOW made only sporadic appearances in seasons three and four, as they had joined the
VORTEX2 The Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment (or VORTEX) are field experiments that study tornadoes. VORTEX1 was the first time scientists completely researched the entire evolution of a tornado with an array of instrumentati ...
project, which is not generally followed by ''Storm Chasers'' cameras. In season four, Dr. Wurman was also shown to be involved in the funding of Casey's IMAX film, when he addressed Casey about a video showing reckless driving by TIV2. The Scout team of Danny Cheresnick and Aaron Ruppert appeared in the first two seasons as part of the DOW team, but were featured in only one episode in season three.


Cancellation

On January 21, 2012, Tim Samaras and Sean Casey confirmed on their
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...
pages that Storm Chasers was cancelled by Discovery Communications. Tim Samaras was reportedly relieved when the show was cancelled as he thought it focused more on interpersonal drama than on the storms themselves.


Broadcast

Repeats of the series are currently airing on the digital broadcast network
Quest A quest is a journey toward a specific mission or a goal. The word serves as a plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult journey towards a goal, often symbolic or allegorical. Tales of quests figure prominently in the folklore of e ...
.


After the series

Timmer and others continued a web series, '' Tornado Chasers'', funded by
Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...
campaigns. On May 31, 2013, three members of the ''
TWISTEX TWISTEX (a backronym for Tactical Weather-Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes Experiment) was a tornado research experiment that was founded and led by Tim Samaras of Bennett, Colorado, US, that ended in the deaths of three researchers in ...
'' team,
Tim Samaras Timothy Michael Samaras (November 12, 1957 – May 31, 2013) was an American engineer and storm chaser best known for his field research on tornadoes and time on the Discovery Channel show, '' Storm Chasers''. He died in the 2013 El Reno ...
, his twenty-four-year-old son Paul Samaras, and
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
native Carl Young (aged 45), lost their lives while chasing an EF3 tornado in
El Reno, Oklahoma El Reno is a city in and county seat of Canadian County, Oklahoma, Canadian County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city population was 16,989, marking a change of 1.55% from 16,729, recorded in the ...
. The three were featured in a ''Storm Chasers'' special, "Mile Wide Tornado: Oklahoma Disaster", aired on The Discovery Channel on June 5, 2013. They were also featured in
The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather foreca ...
's television special "Dangerous Day Ahead" which aired a month later. On February 4, 2016, Herbert Stein (former driver of the Doppler on Wheels) died at age 57 after a short battle with pancreatic and liver cancer. On January 23, 2018, former Storm Chasers member Joel Taylor died of a drug overdose at age 38 on a cruise ship.


In other media

Storm Chasers Sean Casey and Reed Timmer appeared on an episode of the ''
MythBusters ''MythBusters'' is a science entertainment television program, developed by Peter Rees and produced by Australia's Beyond Television Productions. The series premiered on the Discovery Channel on January 23, 2003. It was broadcast internation ...
''. They had the TIV 2 and the Dominator tested by MythBusters
Adam Savage Adam Whitney Savage (born July 15, 1967) is an American special effects designer and fabricator, actor, educator, and television personality and producer, best known as the former co-host (with Jamie Hyneman) of the Discovery Channel televisi ...
and
Jamie Hyneman James Franklin Hyneman (born September 25, 1956) is an American special effects expert who is best known as the former co-host of the television series '' MythBusters'' alongside Adam Savage, where he became known for his distinctive beret and ...
to see if the vehicles could withstand wind speeds of 200 to 250 mph using a high powered jet engine. (See Storm Chasing Myths.)


See also

* List of programs broadcast by Discovery Channel *
The Weather Channel The Weather Channel (TWC) is an American pay television channel owned by Weather Group, LLC, a subsidiary of Allen Media Group. The channel's headquarters are in Atlanta, Georgia. Launched on May 2, 1982, the channel broadcasts weather foreca ...


References


External links

* * * *
TornadoVideos.Net''Storm Chasers'' on YourDiscovery.com
{{Discovery Channel programming 2007 American television series debuts 2011 American television series endings 2000s American reality television series 2010s American reality television series 2000s American documentary television series 2010s American documentary television series Discovery Channel original programming Storm chasing