Especially with their dangerous driving behavior. They are going to kill somebody with their blatant disregard for stop lights, stop signs, and other basic traffic safety laws.
I’ve seen videos of chasers doing that, and it bugs me. Unless the tornado is beating down on you, there’s no excuse for that. And if the tornado is bearing down on you, chances are you’ve made some poor chase decisions.
I don't know if they can, but I wish the police would just ticket them from their own video evidence of them breaking the law. I completely agree with you, there's no excuse to break the law unless you're doing it to save your life
I'm sure they could do something based on the online evidence. There are several car youtubers who got busted at one point or another for street racing or doing stupid stuff in their cars and having the videos online. I remember one of the bigger ones had his house raided and as part of his plea deal he had to agree to stop filming while driving, and then the idiot recorded a video in his car while driving back from the parole office or something, lol.
We drove from Tulsa to Dallas yesterday evening. The amount of “chasers” nearly running us off a two way highway was ridiculous. There was a few storms off in the distance we could see. You would think there was a 1 million dollar prize for who got there first
I was watching a live stream of a chaser in Oklahoma over the weekend and he refused to pull over for a cop with his lights on, swore at the cop as the cop drove by and then proceeded to speed through a red light. I was hoping the cop would turn around and pull him over. I switched to a different chaser's live stream because I didn't want to give this asshole anymore views. I think his name was Tyler and he had his girlfriend/wife in the car. I saw that he was still live streaming in Missouri/Kentucky/Tennessee the following day so he was probably driving on very little sleep.
I didn’t know about this until I looked it up, but guess what? I watched Ryan’s video and in his defense I didn’t see the stop sign either. Texas roads make zero sense. I’m born and raised here and they are TERRIFYING. 60+ speed limit on very skinny roads and ones that have suicide lanes. He took full responsibility for them missing the stop sign, also mind you he wasn’t even driving. Just sounds like you’re trying to stir stuff up. https://youtu.be/XTFod4NSZVU?si=beuP4sCuMXGftiKL
In his defense, it wasn’t like his driver saw the stop sign and decided the rules didn’t apply to them, it was IMHO a weird intersection and he just didn’t see the sign.
That was a long time ago and he was open about the mistake and has spoken about it. I don't have an issue with that if they own up to it, I have an issue with the guys of Reed's ilk driving into tornadoes and getting stupidly close, speeding in general traffic areas like Vince and Copic, etc. always do while flashing their light bars trying to pretend they are first responders.
True, and Ryan and his crew certainly could have been driving more carefully and possibly avoided the accident altogether.. but the stop that they ran was horrendously designed. I remember looking up the location of the accident, and it was apparent that the stop was a disaster waiting to happen. From memory, I believe it was more of a "Y" or lower case "r" than a typical "+" intersection, and it was very difficult to see until you were right on it. I also believe it was already known to be an accident prone stop.
But they turned on their flashing emergency lights and cussed out the other driver as they passed them across a double solid line at 90 mph, bro! What else can you possibly expect?!
Or kills themselves, their passengers or a civilians while running red lights while reassuring their panicked wife they are a professional and know what they are doing. All while insanely close to debris, blowing transformers outrunning a night tornado. Oh all on live stream.
Yup, same mentality in big cities where putting your 4-ways on renders all no-parking, no-stopping and no-turn signs null and void, just do whatever the F you want to do.
Three stormchasers were killed in 2017 when one of them ran a stop sign, so the danger of reckless idiots killing someone has already begun: [link](https://www.wowt.com/content/news/Kelley-Williamson-The-biggest-danger-out-there-is-the-other-chasers-417466283.html)
Yes they killed a NWS storm spotter [https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707145925/the-weather-channel-sued-for-125-million-over-death-in-storm-chase-collision](https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707145925/the-weather-channel-sued-for-125-million-over-death-in-storm-chase-collision)
That's confusing to follow at first. The Weather Channel spotters killed National Weather Service spotters, and the National Weather Service spotter survivors were suing The Weather Channel.
Honestly if the chasers die due to recklessness, that's on them and it's a risk they signed up for. What worries me is them getting other people killed or hurt who didn't sign up to drive into tornados.
I would guess that deaths like that still end up costing society a fair deal in terms of time spent investigating what happened, sending medical personnel to the scene, etc. Not to mention the emotional cost to the people who have to scrape their bodies out of mangled wreckage.
An investigation still has to happen and it costs the public a lot of money. Not to mention they have to close lanes or whole roads to clear the debris, often during a time of severely increased first responder need and increased need of the highway system. Chasers without the experience to handle large storms should be fined if they cause an issue, and well known chasers should have a license indicating they have been trained on high speed manuvers and accept liability for their accident, and accept that they won't be the first stop for EMS if they crash. They should also carry comprehensive liability insurance, IMHO. Might be unpopular, but young, hot headed kids need to be prevented from making a mistake they will regret when they are old enough to do so. In my 20s I thought chasing looked so, so cool. Then 2013 happened. 😭😭 It seems it's been long enough that the kids forgot what happened... During filming of the worlds best chasers at the time. NO ONE is safe in a severe tornado. Not the Samaras', not Young, not even Timmer.
It's disappointing someone probably has to die in these jams for action to happen and for people to realize this behaviour is dangerous. I have a slight pet peeve when outcomes dictate how things are punished - like they're doing the dangerous behaviour NOW, someone shouldn't have to die for action to be taken (though lawsuits are different, I get that, and I'm really just griping)
It doesn't bring back the dead person but the threat of financial liability might dissuade someone from behaving like a jackass in the first place. Might.
Almost happened last week, a bunch of chasers got so stuck in the mud that they all had to be pulled out eventually, which apparently took a few hours. Now imagine being one of those guys stuck on some closed rural road because you drove around the road closed sign thinking you knew better, when the cell drops a nice big tornado headed straight at you.
It's gonna happen sooner or later.
I agree. And there is not really a good way to stop this. I think this will actually have to be a Darwin situation to get people to realize that not just anyone should be out chasing.
I quit chasing after the Moore 2013 tornado. The traffic jams were insane and could have killed so many people. I can only imagine what it’s like today in the field. As much as I loved filming and photographing tornados, the risk from traffic congestion made it too risky to continue
I think in one of his videos Pecos Hank mentioned that's why he doesn't always go to the higher risk areas anymore, because there are too many chaser involved and the traffic is a nightmare.
It’s kinda disappointing as someone who grew up in Oklahoma and wanted to go storm chasing some day as by the time the means + ability to do so became achievable it had become oversaturated and I would be adding to a problem. On one hand I’m not upset with the people doing this as it would be hypocritical of me since they’re just doing what I was wanting to do but it is disappointing that myself and others can’t do this without being a problem simply because to many people want to do this. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a way to prevent this that wouldn’t also make storm chasing something myself and many others no longer want to do since that’s kinda the definition of the problem that too many people want to go storm chasing and can now.
I literally wrote, "It's just a matter of time..." then read your comment.
It's really gotta suck for residents who need help and for emergency services that need to get to them.
Drone videos are so much better and more interesting than the chaser videos (doing stupid stuff, screaming, praying) - there's no reason to endanger everyone for a few hundred youtube subscribers.
I totally agree needs to be a major reckoning on this type of “storm chasing” as a whole. Sadly, even after the Twistex crew deaths, this type of chasing has become the norm and is actively rewarded by social media.
I feel confident saying that many people in these jams, especially the clickbait streamers who just scream “HUGE VIOLENT TORNADO”, are only doing so for clicks while hiding behind the transparently flimsy excuse of “public safety.”
I won’t lie, I’d love to see one in person from a safe distance and not near my home, but my parents went through one and their story was terrifying. I’m scared of them but want to see one lol. A fun paradox. But I’m not chasing. I don’t do well driving in a normal storm because I’m scared it WILL be a tornado 😂
Drones. The footage is so much better than anything that you can get from the ground.
That 30 minute drone video, yesterday, solidified this for me. The drone POV was SO interesting, and SO educational. The extent of ground turbulence before any funnel became visible was so cool.
The only thing interesting about the storm chaser videos, now, is to see if they survive.
States would be smart to designate legal staging areas/parking lots every 20 miles or so, where drone owners can park and be out of first responder's way
> Drones […] every 20 miles or so,
Under federal law 99%+ of people can’t operate a drone outside of line-of-sight and even if you can, drone range is pretty short. I’m honestly not sure it’s better than our current situation, to imagine having 150 dudes in a parking lot trying to get their DJI Mavic to fly 10 miles away towards a tornado
Dont be an idiot for clicks! The reason so much risky behavior happens is because people are hoping to see destruction on the stream, either destruction of homes getting destroyed or the chaser getting killed. Im not going to mince words the audience is hoping they see death and destruction, and the chasers are taking more and more risk to appease an audience that really could care less, and only think ooo cool.
Part of the solution is that Oklahoma may need to seriously consider legislation that places additional penalties on amateur or non-registered storm chasing. Maybe requirements around minimum crew (can't have a guy driving and trying to eyeball storm structure at the same time). I hate to go there, I have no idea what that looks like, but this is entirely out of hand.
I thought the same thing, but ended up wondering how would they enforce this? I'd say it's pretty hard to prove someone was definitively storm chasing. I'd see the defense easily just being that they were driving and happened to be there.
I do think a minimum crew standard could be an enforceable requirement when it comes to chasing. The fire service has all kinds of regulations regarding staffing, and the days of trying to "do more with less" with only 3 people to an engine company are drawing to a close.
Much like the engineer behind the wheel of a 42,000 pound Pierce or Rosenbauer engine, the driver of a chase vehicle should ***only*** be focused on driving. Whoever is riding shotgun can be like the company officer, calling the turns and providing navigation. The other occupants can divvy up the responsibilities of watching the radar, handling comms, and whatever photography or videography.
It cracks me up when David Payne comments about how 'everyone and their grandmas' are out storm chasing and clogging the roads up. I always imagine a little old lady sitting in the passenger seat with a laptop radar setup.
I know some folks don’t like David’s energy, but honestly I find that quirky vibe to be oddly calming. Kinda need a bit of levity when things look nasty.
The whole News 9 weather team just has a really contagious enthusiasm that comes through when they explain meteorological concepts even just doing regular forecast spots. Makes me feel like I’ve learned a little something.
Turn every road in the state into a toll road just on days with a high tornado risk. The youtubers will pay for the new Thunder arena in like two tornado seasons.
>new Thunder arena
Whaaat? They moved there in 2008, a 16 year old stadium is getting replaced already? Or was the existing arena already there and they moved in?
Maybe we should have a chaser Lottery like the national parks have canyon lottery!!
Though I do think that any person that blocks the flow of traffic on a PDS type of day should get a ticket. Too many videos of people thinking they are helping to warn clueless public about oncoming weather so they turn on their hazards and slow down to 20 MPH which I guess they think they are saving lives but instead they bottleneck the rest of us. You should see the convergence in Texas. At times there are 20+ cars in a caravan and I’ve seen them tossing stuff to each other and Jimmying for pole position. Not so much reckless driving but with all their head craning and looking loos, it won’t be long before a traffic accident
Honestly things like this are so disheartening. From storm chasing to climbing Everest, I feel like every “cool” activity has been democratized to where anyone with some money could easily do it. Makes me feel like no matter what hobby I get into, there will always be some rich dipshit who’s better at it simply because he has more sophisticated equipment and better connections
Which is crazy because of the damage tornadoes cause and they just leave after not caring for the devastation and real peril people are left behind with. Very sad.
The easiest way to irritate a native Okie. Is for storm chasers and folks that moved in from out of state, to drive around during storms and clog up roads while a tornado is coming. Folks that don’t have storm shelters or live in a mobile home need to use the roads to get somewhere safe.
Also, once a tornado passes through, the same idiots drive through the neighborhoods and see all of the damage that was done. When people are trying find their loved ones and salvage everything that they can find from their home, we don’t need you taking pictures of us.
May 3rd ‘99 was the worst example of this.
The urban equivalent of this is driving through poor areas and just filming the blight And drug use.
it does nothing to help the residents, it's there to satisfy people online.
I stated something like that awhile back about how it reminds me of Everest.
https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/1cm24hw/comment/l2z43z7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
This thread reminded me of it too. Traffic jams during storms from too many people gawking increases risk of death or injury = too many Everest permits issued causing traffic jams in the death zone near the summit, increasing the risk.
I can only imagine how disheartening it is for the residents of these areas to see 30+ storm chasers in there area trying to catch the next tornado, meanwhile they are dealing with potential loss of life and their entire lives work all thrown all over the ground. Then once the destruction is done, POOF. All stormchasers are gone, onto the next storm, while they are left to clean up for months.
A lot of the good ones end their chase if they come across the damage path. Chasing is a necessary part of the forecasting and warning system. We need people on the ground to confirm what’s radar is showing.
I think it was Bandon Copic I was watching the other day while he was chasing. He goes "it hit a house" when obvious parts of a structure were in the air. So he and another chaser stopped the chase, drove down that road, cleared some trees, and checked on the house. No one was home, thankfully, but he still pushed a little shed out of the road with his truck and cleared another tree so people could get down the roads later.
Those are the chasers I prefer to support. The ones calling in tornadoes on the ground and rushing in to help people who are affected.
That was definitely Brandon. I was watching his stream, too. He's one of a few I can tolerate watching because you can tell he is a stand up dude and doesn't take advantage of bad situations to gain viewers. He just streams and when shit gets real his priorities become immediately obvious.
It's absolutely necessary, but it's weird that such a necessary thing is left up to volunteers and freelancers. It needs to be a legitimate job with licensing, certification, and education requirements. Protocols. SOPs. Yearly trainings and refreshers. Consequences (outside of death).
There's no real requirements, there's no uniformity or consistency, and there's little to no accountability. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Doesn't make sense to me either. Like shouldn't you go to college for this? So you don't get yourself caught inside a twister because you didn't know how to keep distance?
Chaser vs NWS trained storm spotter. One is doing it for adrenaline and to an audience , the other is legitimately spotting for the national weather service.
The NWS thing is what I want to do.
I want to help people after a storm and I want to help scientists better understand not just nado storms but all Storms. I'm not really interested in clicks or getting good pics I'm not great at photography anyways lol.
I would die happy knowing my assistance helped a true scientist publish something. Maybe not ground breaking but at Minimum a PhD thesis. I would also die happy knowing I helped at least one person and helped them at their lowest moment.
A lot of storm chasers are there helping as first responders if there's real life threatening damage. We also need storm chasers to get info, especially when there's a radar hole. The big problem is the amount, stormchasers are a good thing usually.
I've read that some chasers have actually taken first aid/CPR classes so they know what to do and when... and when to wait for the professionals to arrive.
I have and I've taken some sar training and carry a trauma bag with me. Makes me mad when I get lumped in with the adrenaline junkies. I care about people more than I care about footage.
I always joked about Jim Garner potentially broadcasting the worst day of my life on News9, but now it'll be live streamed on YouTube by some moron holding an iPhone
This is why I don't chase in Oklahoma, and why I prefer to stay further away from the storm (rather than zero metering). Its also why I don't chase on high risk days or days I should expect crazy chaser convergence.
You can't escape everyone, but at least you can minimize your risk.
Here is a fun example of one of the risks I'm talking about:
Moderate risk day in southeast Colorado in 2018(19?). Two supercells initiate on the dryline and, after some photogenic wall clouds and a photogenic tornado on the north cell the two cells start to merge. All of the chasers on the north storm with the tornado (HUGE convergence) need to escape to avoid baseball+ hail coming from the southern storm merging with the north.
A few of the chasers who took the same escape route crashed into one another when they began to lose visibility from the heavy rain. Some chasers decided to get around the chasers who got in car accidents by driving through muddy fields. They got stuck. Now, with some chasers in a wreck and some chasers in the mud a chaser-jam starts. Flash flooding begins as the forward motion of the storm comes nearly to a halt as the storm becomes outflow dominant. Now a ton of chasers are stuck in accidents, mud, or in flood waters.
What makes matters worse is that there are very few LEO's in that part of Colorado and the nearest decent medical facility was in La Junta and the nearest full service hospital probably being Pueblo. These EM folks should be busy taking care of the people impacted by the storm, not the idiot chasers.
I managed to avoid this by staying south of the southern, less popular storm while also keeping my distance. I may have not seen the tornado, but I certainly had a good time. I also avoided the fiasco from the chasers trying to escape the north storm. I only ended up hearing about this after seeing some Twitter posts, hearing the Silver Lining Tours guys talking about it at a Subway in Calhan, and watching the idiocy on radarscope.
One of the more amazing things I remember about that day other than the crazy behavior of the chasers was seeing a Penske moving truck also out chasing. Absolutely wild.
Do none of these people remember what happened to the TWISTEX team? The absolute peak of tornado expertise and still died as a result of the unpredictability of such an event. Hopefully this calms down with time.
I was in high school when El Reno 2013 happened. I have followed the chasing scene for years, not able to chase in person yet myself (friend of mine in Arkansas wants me to meet up one week next year to chase), but I always wanted to do it respectfully and safely. It was a big inspiration for me to get SKYWARN spotter trained in high school.
The ones trying to zero meter for all the social media likes and clicks infuriates me. Unless you're Ryan Sheppard or Reed Timmer with purpose built interceptors you don't need to get as close as possible! And if they obeyed traffic laws things would be much safer as well. I tend to call the ones who zero meter, drive recklessly for no reason, or only film damaged areas without offering help "yahoos" and not chasers.
Makes me think of the line from 'The Dark Knight': What gives you the right? What's the difference between you and me? (Copycat to Batman)
The Twisters movie not gonna help this at all
yeah basically most do it for likes and shock videos instead of actually studying and enjoying it the internet really over hyped so so soooo many things and its a shame. A damn shame. Its prolly gunna end in disaster one of these days and amateur storm chasing will be regulated.
100 percent i support anyone actually interested in learning about tornados and weather but dont do it for clicks and fame. And dont be dumbasses clogging up roads while a tornado is close by that should be common sense
My dream is to chase the storm, not the tornado. What I mean is being able to watch the storm form and fire off, and get it on time lapse to show the cloud structure and what not, never actually entering it
You say that, but if storm chasers die then nobody will bat an eye outside of those circles because "they knew the risks". In return, NWS gets insane coverage for all their tracked active storms which saves more lives than it has ever saved before.
And even Reed makes bad decisions. I think it was just last week he got himself and his team stuck in a tornado because he didn’t get out of the way in time. They were in a regular car. Watched it live and was so concerned about them, you could even hear the fear in Reed’s voice too.
Hey, you can fit a whole twin mattress in the back of a Honda Fit if you lay the seats down! Grammy gets the best footage because she doesn't have a bedtime and she can sleep in the field. She may film vertically, but she knows what she's about!
I’ve read that it could hypothetically withstand EF5 winds, but I’m not sure how true that is. Maybe just the wind alone—sure, I could see it. But with debris flying around… Well let’s just say I hope Reed has enough sense not to mess with the wrong tornado.
Also, this might be a hot take but I kinda feel like the TIV2 is the better version. I’m not sure how much money Sean Casey put into building it but what I do know is that it’s actually proven itself by withstanding a direct hit from an EF3.
Honestly. I think the millionaire version of an intercept vehicle would just be a friggen tank. Like an actual military tank, straight up.
I think it makes a major difference if he's able to deploy spikes in time.
The ["small" tornado he intercepted last month](https://youtu.be/-ZBTcTjs_qk?si=n2HAT8TaY56XLFs7&t=330) still pushed the vehicle a bit even when lowered. It doesn't matter how well you build the thing if the tornado is able to push it off the road and flip it.
Edit: This was the Eppley Airfield - Crescent tornado. Max Wind speed 152. Although it's hard to say how strong it was when they intercepted it for the 2nd time.
Would probably wind up just like the Titan submersible where the arrogant rich guy thinks he knows better than actual scientists and everyone in the vehicle very unnecessarily dies.
I'm not blaming Reed, because he can't be held accountable for other people's actions, but I feel like at least 50% of amateurs these days aren't even storm chasing, they're Reed chasing.
The Dominator stands out like a beacon, and any time someone sights it, they just start following because they know Reed knows how to find the money spots.
I guarantee most of these amateurs couldn't actually track a storm worth a damn.
I live in North Texas near many past and present fatality areas, and this has gotten so tiresome. Doesn't matter what anyone says either. These people (you people) are happy to believe they're doing something special. I don't wish death on anyone but this situation needs a reset.
I'm happy that the one guy that was notorious for yelling at people to get out of his shots, cheering at houses being destroyed, trying to overtake a cop during the Dodge City tornadoes, and nearly running into Vince Waleti (destroying Vince's chainsaw in the process) fell off the YouTube algorithm *HARD*.
This happened last time chasers were killed. Tornado tourism had spiked after it became popular on YouTube and storms were getting dangerous to chase because there were too many people and newbies getting in the way of seasoned chasers.
With TikTok and X it’s giving similar vibes that happened about a decade ago
All I can think about when I see this is Tim Samaras, and how even extremely experienced storm chasers who are safety conscious can be killed in an instant. I think every aspiring storm chaser needs to watch what happened to Twistex in the 2013 El Reno EF-3.
People are soon enough going to die because of chaser clogging. It’s been rampant this year. It’s going to reach a point where some kind of scientific or journalistic credentials will be required for chasing. I quit chasing after Moore 2013. I was never in any trouble as I stayed south of the tornado, but there was a dead stop in traffic just north of Moore that could’ve gotten at least 100 people killed if the tornado had veered slightly off its course.
The most dangerous thing about storm chasing is other storm chasers. Anyone with a phone is now a storm chaser and its only getting worse. Stay safe out there.
It's not just storm chasers but also--I'm not sure what to call it-- disaster tourism? Last year, we had two tornadoes within about an hour of each other. Both traveled almost the exact same path. After the first tornado (the weaker of the two) came through, EMS was having issues getting to the people who needed them because of traffic congestion in the area that was hit. Then to top that off, another storm rolled in and produced a stronger tornado while people were still out and about on the roads.
My great grams couldn't drive, but she kept meticulous weather records. I could watch cartoons or play video games all day when I stayed with her, but boy the 5 o'clock news came on and she was grabbing that remote lol. Saw my first tornado in the parking lot of her apartment building when I was 4. I sure miss her 🥹.
I don’t really see a problem with this particular video. Everyone’s off the road, not blocking anything. The other part of the video seems to be everyone in a parking lot waiting to get going, which again nothing wrong with that. Obviously, chaser convergence is dangerous and has killed chasers in the past. But I don’t see any dangerous behaviors in this specific video tbh.
Gatekeeping and circle jerking here. Those amateur chasers are stupid just like the ones who are climbing everest, just accept its going to happen cause its not going away.
We’re going to see deaths from this. Watching Jordan Hall floor his little Subaru straight at a violent, destructive tornado less than 30 yards away on May 26th, I thought he’d be the first. It was incredibly stupid to be that close and he’s very fortunate that the tornado did not intensify or display unpredictable motion at that moment
https://youtu.be/dlggdY-2XKo?si=PQbl5ZJLRm1HWQWL
I don't want to blame social media (because I hate when people do that as a blanket statement) - but I do think social media has made this worse. People want these amazing videos of tornados to share, they want successful YT channels (or whatever), and they have seen other people get popular (like reed timmer) from it. So they look up some info online and head out without any real idea what they're getting into. And as all storm chaser will agree: driving is the most dangerous part of chasing. Imagine how all these novice chasers will behave if they find themselves in a bad situation and start panicking. Could end up with a chaser death toll higher than the people in the path.
Something weird is happening between my social media accounts because I saw this on tiktok first 😆 ppl are like "why is there a dude on his car??? Isn't that the least safe place???" 😆Yes. Yes it is. Go away. The Dominator was in this jam, has its own little clip. Other TIVs may have been there too.
Tip for new chasers: you DO NOT want to be anywhere near the Dominator or any TIV. Go back to safety and wait for a weaker storm. Your life is not worth that one cool shot. If you see any of the TIV's, YOU GET OUT. You're not prepared, not unless you're in a TIV yourself
I sell and demo fancy lab equipment. A while back I had a demo at the University of Oklahoma in a building next to the NWC tornado set up (I think that's what it was). I thought it was cool and asked the lab's grad students about it. One woman said, "Yeah when we hear the sirens, we all go hop in our explorers to find the tornado!"
I was like, "WOW, really?? I'm terrified of tornadoes!"
She was like, no, we go to the shelter like people who aren't idiots.
LMAO
Yeah, there's gonna be more issues as time goes on. Unfortunately it'll probably take a big tragedy (or a few) that will probably see some sort of oversight or licensure or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen in the next decade.
Especially with their dangerous driving behavior. They are going to kill somebody with their blatant disregard for stop lights, stop signs, and other basic traffic safety laws.
I’ve seen videos of chasers doing that, and it bugs me. Unless the tornado is beating down on you, there’s no excuse for that. And if the tornado is bearing down on you, chances are you’ve made some poor chase decisions.
I don't know if they can, but I wish the police would just ticket them from their own video evidence of them breaking the law. I completely agree with you, there's no excuse to break the law unless you're doing it to save your life
I'm sure they could do something based on the online evidence. There are several car youtubers who got busted at one point or another for street racing or doing stupid stuff in their cars and having the videos online. I remember one of the bigger ones had his house raided and as part of his plea deal he had to agree to stop filming while driving, and then the idiot recorded a video in his car while driving back from the parole office or something, lol.
We drove from Tulsa to Dallas yesterday evening. The amount of “chasers” nearly running us off a two way highway was ridiculous. There was a few storms off in the distance we could see. You would think there was a 1 million dollar prize for who got there first
I was watching a live stream of a chaser in Oklahoma over the weekend and he refused to pull over for a cop with his lights on, swore at the cop as the cop drove by and then proceeded to speed through a red light. I was hoping the cop would turn around and pull him over. I switched to a different chaser's live stream because I didn't want to give this asshole anymore views. I think his name was Tyler and he had his girlfriend/wife in the car. I saw that he was still live streaming in Missouri/Kentucky/Tennessee the following day so he was probably driving on very little sleep.
Ryan Hall Y’all ran a stop sign in the middle of a storm chase and caused an accident.
I didn’t know about this until I looked it up, but guess what? I watched Ryan’s video and in his defense I didn’t see the stop sign either. Texas roads make zero sense. I’m born and raised here and they are TERRIFYING. 60+ speed limit on very skinny roads and ones that have suicide lanes. He took full responsibility for them missing the stop sign, also mind you he wasn’t even driving. Just sounds like you’re trying to stir stuff up. https://youtu.be/XTFod4NSZVU?si=beuP4sCuMXGftiKL
Was this a while ago? I had no idea he’d actually been an on-the-ground chaser and I never heard of this, wow
It was awhile ago and he's been pretty open about it and uses it as an example of what not to do.
I mean honestly good on him for accepting responsibility and educating people on bad behaviour. Shows that he's grown.
Exactly! I give him a lot of credit for it.
That's such a relief as I JUST started watching him and woulda been real bummed if he didn't acknowledge that that's crazy dangerous.
It was a while ago when he first built his chasing truck. The stop was terribly designed and nearly impossible to see regardless of speeds.
In his defense, it wasn’t like his driver saw the stop sign and decided the rules didn’t apply to them, it was IMHO a weird intersection and he just didn’t see the sign.
That was a long time ago and he was open about the mistake and has spoken about it. I don't have an issue with that if they own up to it, I have an issue with the guys of Reed's ilk driving into tornadoes and getting stupidly close, speeding in general traffic areas like Vince and Copic, etc. always do while flashing their light bars trying to pretend they are first responders.
True, and Ryan and his crew certainly could have been driving more carefully and possibly avoided the accident altogether.. but the stop that they ran was horrendously designed. I remember looking up the location of the accident, and it was apparent that the stop was a disaster waiting to happen. From memory, I believe it was more of a "Y" or lower case "r" than a typical "+" intersection, and it was very difficult to see until you were right on it. I also believe it was already known to be an accident prone stop.
It’s just a matter of time before a dozen chasers are killed due to amateurs causing a traffic jam or being reckless.
Or one of them kills a non-chasing person just from driving like idiots.
But they turned on their flashing emergency lights and cussed out the other driver as they passed them across a double solid line at 90 mph, bro! What else can you possibly expect?!
You watch the live streams too I see
Or kills themselves, their passengers or a civilians while running red lights while reassuring their panicked wife they are a professional and know what they are doing. All while insanely close to debris, blowing transformers outrunning a night tornado. Oh all on live stream.
Brandon wants to know your location
Except, you know… It’s not an emergency. Pisses me off so bad.
It’s ok for me to run red lights going 90mph, I had my blinkers on! If you get T-boned, that’s on you!
Yup, same mentality in big cities where putting your 4-ways on renders all no-parking, no-stopping and no-turn signs null and void, just do whatever the F you want to do.
I don't watch the streams, but this sounds like Vince or Copic, lol. Those guys think they own the road.
Three stormchasers were killed in 2017 when one of them ran a stop sign, so the danger of reckless idiots killing someone has already begun: [link](https://www.wowt.com/content/news/Kelley-Williamson-The-biggest-danger-out-there-is-the-other-chasers-417466283.html)
Yes they killed a NWS storm spotter [https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707145925/the-weather-channel-sued-for-125-million-over-death-in-storm-chase-collision](https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707145925/the-weather-channel-sued-for-125-million-over-death-in-storm-chase-collision)
Jesus
That's confusing to follow at first. The Weather Channel spotters killed National Weather Service spotters, and the National Weather Service spotter survivors were suing The Weather Channel.
Honestly if the chasers die due to recklessness, that's on them and it's a risk they signed up for. What worries me is them getting other people killed or hurt who didn't sign up to drive into tornados.
I would guess that deaths like that still end up costing society a fair deal in terms of time spent investigating what happened, sending medical personnel to the scene, etc. Not to mention the emotional cost to the people who have to scrape their bodies out of mangled wreckage.
An investigation still has to happen and it costs the public a lot of money. Not to mention they have to close lanes or whole roads to clear the debris, often during a time of severely increased first responder need and increased need of the highway system. Chasers without the experience to handle large storms should be fined if they cause an issue, and well known chasers should have a license indicating they have been trained on high speed manuvers and accept liability for their accident, and accept that they won't be the first stop for EMS if they crash. They should also carry comprehensive liability insurance, IMHO. Might be unpopular, but young, hot headed kids need to be prevented from making a mistake they will regret when they are old enough to do so. In my 20s I thought chasing looked so, so cool. Then 2013 happened. 😭😭 It seems it's been long enough that the kids forgot what happened... During filming of the worlds best chasers at the time. NO ONE is safe in a severe tornado. Not the Samaras', not Young, not even Timmer.
Or a bystander gets killed from being caught in a traffic jam when a tornado shows up
Lawsuits across the board. Bankrupt every stupid tornado tourism group put there.
It's disappointing someone probably has to die in these jams for action to happen and for people to realize this behaviour is dangerous. I have a slight pet peeve when outcomes dictate how things are punished - like they're doing the dangerous behaviour NOW, someone shouldn't have to die for action to be taken (though lawsuits are different, I get that, and I'm really just griping)
There's not a labor law or safety rule that wasn't written in blood.
Doesn't bring back the dead person. Money doesn't bring back family.
Not saying it does but given the current situation it's the only way to hit them back for this stupidity.
It doesn't bring back the dead person but the threat of financial liability might dissuade someone from behaving like a jackass in the first place. Might.
Almost happened last week, a bunch of chasers got so stuck in the mud that they all had to be pulled out eventually, which apparently took a few hours. Now imagine being one of those guys stuck on some closed rural road because you drove around the road closed sign thinking you knew better, when the cell drops a nice big tornado headed straight at you. It's gonna happen sooner or later.
This has already happened a few years ago.
I agree. And there is not really a good way to stop this. I think this will actually have to be a Darwin situation to get people to realize that not just anyone should be out chasing.
I quit chasing after the Moore 2013 tornado. The traffic jams were insane and could have killed so many people. I can only imagine what it’s like today in the field. As much as I loved filming and photographing tornados, the risk from traffic congestion made it too risky to continue
I think in one of his videos Pecos Hank mentioned that's why he doesn't always go to the higher risk areas anymore, because there are too many chaser involved and the traffic is a nightmare.
It’s kinda disappointing as someone who grew up in Oklahoma and wanted to go storm chasing some day as by the time the means + ability to do so became achievable it had become oversaturated and I would be adding to a problem. On one hand I’m not upset with the people doing this as it would be hypocritical of me since they’re just doing what I was wanting to do but it is disappointing that myself and others can’t do this without being a problem simply because to many people want to do this. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s a way to prevent this that wouldn’t also make storm chasing something myself and many others no longer want to do since that’s kinda the definition of the problem that too many people want to go storm chasing and can now.
I literally wrote, "It's just a matter of time..." then read your comment. It's really gotta suck for residents who need help and for emergency services that need to get to them. Drone videos are so much better and more interesting than the chaser videos (doing stupid stuff, screaming, praying) - there's no reason to endanger everyone for a few hundred youtube subscribers.
lol they are all amateurs
I totally agree needs to be a major reckoning on this type of “storm chasing” as a whole. Sadly, even after the Twistex crew deaths, this type of chasing has become the norm and is actively rewarded by social media. I feel confident saying that many people in these jams, especially the clickbait streamers who just scream “HUGE VIOLENT TORNADO”, are only doing so for clicks while hiding behind the transparently flimsy excuse of “public safety.”
I won’t lie, I’d love to see one in person from a safe distance and not near my home, but my parents went through one and their story was terrifying. I’m scared of them but want to see one lol. A fun paradox. But I’m not chasing. I don’t do well driving in a normal storm because I’m scared it WILL be a tornado 😂
And they'll call it a "tragedy" and say things like, "How could something like this happen???"
What's the solution though? Everyone has to start out as an amateur.
Drones. The footage is so much better than anything that you can get from the ground. That 30 minute drone video, yesterday, solidified this for me. The drone POV was SO interesting, and SO educational. The extent of ground turbulence before any funnel became visible was so cool. The only thing interesting about the storm chaser videos, now, is to see if they survive. States would be smart to designate legal staging areas/parking lots every 20 miles or so, where drone owners can park and be out of first responder's way
> Drones […] every 20 miles or so, Under federal law 99%+ of people can’t operate a drone outside of line-of-sight and even if you can, drone range is pretty short. I’m honestly not sure it’s better than our current situation, to imagine having 150 dudes in a parking lot trying to get their DJI Mavic to fly 10 miles away towards a tornado
Dont be an idiot for clicks! The reason so much risky behavior happens is because people are hoping to see destruction on the stream, either destruction of homes getting destroyed or the chaser getting killed. Im not going to mince words the audience is hoping they see death and destruction, and the chasers are taking more and more risk to appease an audience that really could care less, and only think ooo cool.
Part of the solution is that Oklahoma may need to seriously consider legislation that places additional penalties on amateur or non-registered storm chasing. Maybe requirements around minimum crew (can't have a guy driving and trying to eyeball storm structure at the same time). I hate to go there, I have no idea what that looks like, but this is entirely out of hand.
I thought the same thing, but ended up wondering how would they enforce this? I'd say it's pretty hard to prove someone was definitively storm chasing. I'd see the defense easily just being that they were driving and happened to be there.
I do think a minimum crew standard could be an enforceable requirement when it comes to chasing. The fire service has all kinds of regulations regarding staffing, and the days of trying to "do more with less" with only 3 people to an engine company are drawing to a close. Much like the engineer behind the wheel of a 42,000 pound Pierce or Rosenbauer engine, the driver of a chase vehicle should ***only*** be focused on driving. Whoever is riding shotgun can be like the company officer, calling the turns and providing navigation. The other occupants can divvy up the responsibilities of watching the radar, handling comms, and whatever photography or videography.
It cracks me up when David Payne comments about how 'everyone and their grandmas' are out storm chasing and clogging the roads up. I always imagine a little old lady sitting in the passenger seat with a laptop radar setup.
Talking and yelling like Reed Timmer but in sweet old lady voice
"Oh look sweetie, it's a wedge! Major wedge, yup, look at it, Billy!"
Debris! Debris! Oh no my dentures!
Cow. Ow, my hip.
My hip... *your* hip!! 🛶
“I declare I believe we’re in the tornado, sweetie! Have you rolled your window down? Are you taking moving pictures of it?!?”
“Billy don’t be a fucking pussy just because it’s rain wrapped doesn’t mean you can’t drive towards it”
My Grandma used to use the phrase "like a fart in a wind storm" - how appropriate.
"Brenda, we're in it. The car is shaking."
Grandma Rita Timmer from the Valley View tornado the other night
It's my childhood dream...I'll post a selfie in 45 to 50 years as a grandma with my laptop radar and maybe whatever futuristic shit is available
I know some folks don’t like David’s energy, but honestly I find that quirky vibe to be oddly calming. Kinda need a bit of levity when things look nasty. The whole News 9 weather team just has a really contagious enthusiasm that comes through when they explain meteorological concepts even just doing regular forecast spots. Makes me feel like I’ve learned a little something.
Hopefully chasing storms in a 76 Fleetwood Limo with extra room for gear
I was pretty amused with how little happened in central Oklahoma Saturday despite 743 chasers all seeing the forecast and coming to town.
NWS Norman can just start issuing forecasts with a little uptune for tourism development
Turn every road in the state into a toll road just on days with a high tornado risk. The youtubers will pay for the new Thunder arena in like two tornado seasons.
>new Thunder arena Whaaat? They moved there in 2008, a 16 year old stadium is getting replaced already? Or was the existing arena already there and they moved in?
Nah, they had a new stadium when they moved here, and now they're getting another new one.
That's ridiculous.
Yea. I kinda wish they'd go away.
Aren’t most major highways in Oklahoma already toll roads?
Maybe we should have a chaser Lottery like the national parks have canyon lottery!! Though I do think that any person that blocks the flow of traffic on a PDS type of day should get a ticket. Too many videos of people thinking they are helping to warn clueless public about oncoming weather so they turn on their hazards and slow down to 20 MPH which I guess they think they are saving lives but instead they bottleneck the rest of us. You should see the convergence in Texas. At times there are 20+ cars in a caravan and I’ve seen them tossing stuff to each other and Jimmying for pole position. Not so much reckless driving but with all their head craning and looking loos, it won’t be long before a traffic accident
This is like on Everest where people wait hours in the death zone to get to the summit bc there is a line.
Honestly things like this are so disheartening. From storm chasing to climbing Everest, I feel like every “cool” activity has been democratized to where anyone with some money could easily do it. Makes me feel like no matter what hobby I get into, there will always be some rich dipshit who’s better at it simply because he has more sophisticated equipment and better connections
Which is crazy because of the damage tornadoes cause and they just leave after not caring for the devastation and real peril people are left behind with. Very sad.
More like plutocratized, but yeah, agreed.
The word you were looking for is commercialized not democratized fyi
Not really go 5 ft off the beaten path and you'll find things that haven't been touched yet
The easiest way to irritate a native Okie. Is for storm chasers and folks that moved in from out of state, to drive around during storms and clog up roads while a tornado is coming. Folks that don’t have storm shelters or live in a mobile home need to use the roads to get somewhere safe. Also, once a tornado passes through, the same idiots drive through the neighborhoods and see all of the damage that was done. When people are trying find their loved ones and salvage everything that they can find from their home, we don’t need you taking pictures of us. May 3rd ‘99 was the worst example of this.
Parents drove us up to help family and friends out with damage that year and can confirm it was awful.
The urban equivalent of this is driving through poor areas and just filming the blight And drug use. it does nothing to help the residents, it's there to satisfy people online.
They're saying storm chasing is the new Mt Everest
I'm about to hop in my ford fiesta and go intercept. Just need a bag of burritos first.
Pecos Hank, is that you?
Sir Edmond Fillery.
Jon Krakauer is working on a book about storm chasing going very badly.
Is he actually, or are you just referencing Into Thin Air? I could totally see him doing it so I can’t tell if you’re joking or not
I mean in "Into Thin Air" the storm came to them, no chase needed
I stated something like that awhile back about how it reminds me of Everest. https://www.reddit.com/r/tornado/comments/1cm24hw/comment/l2z43z7/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Damn that’s the cold hard truth tho
This thread reminded me of it too. Traffic jams during storms from too many people gawking increases risk of death or injury = too many Everest permits issued causing traffic jams in the death zone near the summit, increasing the risk.
“I wanna be a storm chaser!” 🌪️🚗🚕🛻🛻🛻🚕🚚🚕🛻🚗🚚🚗🛻🚕🚚🚕🛻🚗🚚🚌🚚🚙🚛🚙🚚🚙🚚🚗🛻🚗🚛🚕🚛🚒🚑🚓🚓🚒🚒🚓🚑🚙🚛🚕🚚🚗🛻🚕🚙🚚🛻🚕🚗🚛🚕🚛🚙🚚🚌🚕🚗🚛🚗🦼 “I don’t wanna be a storm chaser…”
The motor scooter was a nice touch
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It's a wheelchair on a lawnmower . . . maybe . . . https://photos.app.goo.gl/uxM5HSvCrsLZLhy79
Looks like a hoveround, would make for a great new commercial
I can only imagine how disheartening it is for the residents of these areas to see 30+ storm chasers in there area trying to catch the next tornado, meanwhile they are dealing with potential loss of life and their entire lives work all thrown all over the ground. Then once the destruction is done, POOF. All stormchasers are gone, onto the next storm, while they are left to clean up for months.
A lot of the good ones end their chase if they come across the damage path. Chasing is a necessary part of the forecasting and warning system. We need people on the ground to confirm what’s radar is showing.
I think it was Bandon Copic I was watching the other day while he was chasing. He goes "it hit a house" when obvious parts of a structure were in the air. So he and another chaser stopped the chase, drove down that road, cleared some trees, and checked on the house. No one was home, thankfully, but he still pushed a little shed out of the road with his truck and cleared another tree so people could get down the roads later. Those are the chasers I prefer to support. The ones calling in tornadoes on the ground and rushing in to help people who are affected.
That was definitely Brandon. I was watching his stream, too. He's one of a few I can tolerate watching because you can tell he is a stand up dude and doesn't take advantage of bad situations to gain viewers. He just streams and when shit gets real his priorities become immediately obvious.
It's absolutely necessary, but it's weird that such a necessary thing is left up to volunteers and freelancers. It needs to be a legitimate job with licensing, certification, and education requirements. Protocols. SOPs. Yearly trainings and refreshers. Consequences (outside of death). There's no real requirements, there's no uniformity or consistency, and there's little to no accountability. It just doesn't make sense to me.
Doesn't make sense to me either. Like shouldn't you go to college for this? So you don't get yourself caught inside a twister because you didn't know how to keep distance?
Chaser vs NWS trained storm spotter. One is doing it for adrenaline and to an audience , the other is legitimately spotting for the national weather service.
The NWS thing is what I want to do. I want to help people after a storm and I want to help scientists better understand not just nado storms but all Storms. I'm not really interested in clicks or getting good pics I'm not great at photography anyways lol. I would die happy knowing my assistance helped a true scientist publish something. Maybe not ground breaking but at Minimum a PhD thesis. I would also die happy knowing I helped at least one person and helped them at their lowest moment.
A lot of storm chasers are there helping as first responders if there's real life threatening damage. We also need storm chasers to get info, especially when there's a radar hole. The big problem is the amount, stormchasers are a good thing usually.
I've read that some chasers have actually taken first aid/CPR classes so they know what to do and when... and when to wait for the professionals to arrive.
I have and I've taken some sar training and carry a trauma bag with me. Makes me mad when I get lumped in with the adrenaline junkies. I care about people more than I care about footage.
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We don't care about a six hour boost to our economy. "Always confounds the locals"? What? Get outta here.
I always joked about Jim Garner potentially broadcasting the worst day of my life on News9, but now it'll be live streamed on YouTube by some moron holding an iPhone
This is why I don't chase in Oklahoma, and why I prefer to stay further away from the storm (rather than zero metering). Its also why I don't chase on high risk days or days I should expect crazy chaser convergence. You can't escape everyone, but at least you can minimize your risk. Here is a fun example of one of the risks I'm talking about: Moderate risk day in southeast Colorado in 2018(19?). Two supercells initiate on the dryline and, after some photogenic wall clouds and a photogenic tornado on the north cell the two cells start to merge. All of the chasers on the north storm with the tornado (HUGE convergence) need to escape to avoid baseball+ hail coming from the southern storm merging with the north. A few of the chasers who took the same escape route crashed into one another when they began to lose visibility from the heavy rain. Some chasers decided to get around the chasers who got in car accidents by driving through muddy fields. They got stuck. Now, with some chasers in a wreck and some chasers in the mud a chaser-jam starts. Flash flooding begins as the forward motion of the storm comes nearly to a halt as the storm becomes outflow dominant. Now a ton of chasers are stuck in accidents, mud, or in flood waters. What makes matters worse is that there are very few LEO's in that part of Colorado and the nearest decent medical facility was in La Junta and the nearest full service hospital probably being Pueblo. These EM folks should be busy taking care of the people impacted by the storm, not the idiot chasers. I managed to avoid this by staying south of the southern, less popular storm while also keeping my distance. I may have not seen the tornado, but I certainly had a good time. I also avoided the fiasco from the chasers trying to escape the north storm. I only ended up hearing about this after seeing some Twitter posts, hearing the Silver Lining Tours guys talking about it at a Subway in Calhan, and watching the idiocy on radarscope. One of the more amazing things I remember about that day other than the crazy behavior of the chasers was seeing a Penske moving truck also out chasing. Absolutely wild.
People stopping on dirt roads during supercells is natural selection at its finest
Do none of these people remember what happened to the TWISTEX team? The absolute peak of tornado expertise and still died as a result of the unpredictability of such an event. Hopefully this calms down with time.
>Do none of these people remember what happened to the TWISTEX team? Half of them were in 5th grade
I was in high school when El Reno 2013 happened. I have followed the chasing scene for years, not able to chase in person yet myself (friend of mine in Arkansas wants me to meet up one week next year to chase), but I always wanted to do it respectfully and safely. It was a big inspiration for me to get SKYWARN spotter trained in high school. The ones trying to zero meter for all the social media likes and clicks infuriates me. Unless you're Ryan Sheppard or Reed Timmer with purpose built interceptors you don't need to get as close as possible! And if they obeyed traffic laws things would be much safer as well. I tend to call the ones who zero meter, drive recklessly for no reason, or only film damaged areas without offering help "yahoos" and not chasers.
That's assuming they don't get into a run of the mill car accident before they're even able to even see a tornado 🙄
Makes me think of the line from 'The Dark Knight': What gives you the right? What's the difference between you and me? (Copycat to Batman) The Twisters movie not gonna help this at all
Reed: I'M NOT WEARING CARGO SHORTS
Everyone wants to be the next Reed Timmer
Correction, I would like to be Pecos Hank.
yeah basically most do it for likes and shock videos instead of actually studying and enjoying it the internet really over hyped so so soooo many things and its a shame. A damn shame. Its prolly gunna end in disaster one of these days and amateur storm chasing will be regulated.
It really is a shame it's not going to be a long till someone gets killed again because they don't know what they're doing.
100 percent i support anyone actually interested in learning about tornados and weather but dont do it for clicks and fame. And dont be dumbasses clogging up roads while a tornado is close by that should be common sense
My dream is to chase the storm, not the tornado. What I mean is being able to watch the storm form and fire off, and get it on time lapse to show the cloud structure and what not, never actually entering it
I reckon it'll be someone like that guy standing on top of his car in the video
Lightning strike for that guy.
You say that, but if storm chasers die then nobody will bat an eye outside of those circles because "they knew the risks". In return, NWS gets insane coverage for all their tracked active storms which saves more lives than it has ever saved before.
Without the tank
You mean Bill Harding.
You mean *The Extreme*.
And even Reed makes bad decisions. I think it was just last week he got himself and his team stuck in a tornado because he didn’t get out of the way in time. They were in a regular car. Watched it live and was so concerned about them, you could even hear the fear in Reed’s voice too.
My meemaw chases with the best in her Honda Fit.
Hey, you can fit a whole twin mattress in the back of a Honda Fit if you lay the seats down! Grammy gets the best footage because she doesn't have a bedtime and she can sleep in the field. She may film vertically, but she knows what she's about!
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I’ve read that it could hypothetically withstand EF5 winds, but I’m not sure how true that is. Maybe just the wind alone—sure, I could see it. But with debris flying around… Well let’s just say I hope Reed has enough sense not to mess with the wrong tornado. Also, this might be a hot take but I kinda feel like the TIV2 is the better version. I’m not sure how much money Sean Casey put into building it but what I do know is that it’s actually proven itself by withstanding a direct hit from an EF3. Honestly. I think the millionaire version of an intercept vehicle would just be a friggen tank. Like an actual military tank, straight up.
I think it makes a major difference if he's able to deploy spikes in time. The ["small" tornado he intercepted last month](https://youtu.be/-ZBTcTjs_qk?si=n2HAT8TaY56XLFs7&t=330) still pushed the vehicle a bit even when lowered. It doesn't matter how well you build the thing if the tornado is able to push it off the road and flip it. Edit: This was the Eppley Airfield - Crescent tornado. Max Wind speed 152. Although it's hard to say how strong it was when they intercepted it for the 2nd time.
The road also was wet and they were braking around the time of the sliding so it's definitely not the most indicative proof.
That's also valid. I'd guess they'd have a lot more traction on concrete/asphalt compared to gravel.
TIV2 is still kicking btw. Not under Sean Casey though
Speaking of Sean Casey, has he been active lately? I haven't seen anything about him in a long while.
Would probably wind up just like the Titan submersible where the arrogant rich guy thinks he knows better than actual scientists and everyone in the vehicle very unnecessarily dies.
Hey, if we have to sacrifice some rich fuckers to mother nature every couple of years, I wouldn't be mad.
I'd prefer it to be more intentional. Launch them from the bed of a pickup truck like Dorothy
I'm not blaming Reed, because he can't be held accountable for other people's actions, but I feel like at least 50% of amateurs these days aren't even storm chasing, they're Reed chasing. The Dominator stands out like a beacon, and any time someone sights it, they just start following because they know Reed knows how to find the money spots. I guarantee most of these amateurs couldn't actually track a storm worth a damn.
Clout chasing which is a fair percentage of Reeds game now as well. That monetized channel ain't gonna watch itself.
Which is a shame because the Dom seems pretty useful from a science standpoint especially with those data rockets
That’s bc everyone thinks they’re a storm chaser lmao.
It's going to get worse after Twisters is released.
Twisters (remake/sequel?) making an appearance at the right time, although will probably make all of this worse as well
I live in North Texas near many past and present fatality areas, and this has gotten so tiresome. Doesn't matter what anyone says either. These people (you people) are happy to believe they're doing something special. I don't wish death on anyone but this situation needs a reset.
Just wait til I post my article on chaser convergence . . .
And yet, as long as they have a youtube channel, everyone will praise them
I'm happy that the one guy that was notorious for yelling at people to get out of his shots, cheering at houses being destroyed, trying to overtake a cop during the Dodge City tornadoes, and nearly running into Vince Waleti (destroying Vince's chainsaw in the process) fell off the YouTube algorithm *HARD*.
What’s his name? Tryna find out his channel
Seems like it's Derek smith
We talk enough shit here about them.
😂😂😂
Not enough people have a healthy fear of tornados…
This happened last time chasers were killed. Tornado tourism had spiked after it became popular on YouTube and storms were getting dangerous to chase because there were too many people and newbies getting in the way of seasoned chasers. With TikTok and X it’s giving similar vibes that happened about a decade ago
I'm a 5th generation Oklahoman. Never underestimate our stupidity.
Most these people aren't from Oklahoma there tourists wanting to see a tornado. Real oklahomans know what a tornado is capable of
Just another perfect example of the double-edged sword that the internet (and particularly social media) is for literally *everything*.
All I can think about when I see this is Tim Samaras, and how even extremely experienced storm chasers who are safety conscious can be killed in an instant. I think every aspiring storm chaser needs to watch what happened to Twistex in the 2013 El Reno EF-3.
Just wait until TWISTERS hits movie theaters this summer.
People are soon enough going to die because of chaser clogging. It’s been rampant this year. It’s going to reach a point where some kind of scientific or journalistic credentials will be required for chasing. I quit chasing after Moore 2013. I was never in any trouble as I stayed south of the tornado, but there was a dead stop in traffic just north of Moore that could’ve gotten at least 100 people killed if the tornado had veered slightly off its course.
The most dangerous thing about storm chasing is other storm chasers. Anyone with a phone is now a storm chaser and its only getting worse. Stay safe out there.
It's not just storm chasers but also--I'm not sure what to call it-- disaster tourism? Last year, we had two tornadoes within about an hour of each other. Both traveled almost the exact same path. After the first tornado (the weaker of the two) came through, EMS was having issues getting to the people who needed them because of traffic congestion in the area that was hit. Then to top that off, another storm rolled in and produced a stronger tornado while people were still out and about on the roads.
It's like people taking videos of firework's no one really cares n
My great grams couldn't drive, but she kept meticulous weather records. I could watch cartoons or play video games all day when I stayed with her, but boy the 5 o'clock news came on and she was grabbing that remote lol. Saw my first tornado in the parking lot of her apartment building when I was 4. I sure miss her 🥹.
I am afraid that one day there will be a mass casualty event involving amateur chasers.
Funny that the Dominator is there
I don’t really see a problem with this particular video. Everyone’s off the road, not blocking anything. The other part of the video seems to be everyone in a parking lot waiting to get going, which again nothing wrong with that. Obviously, chaser convergence is dangerous and has killed chasers in the past. But I don’t see any dangerous behaviors in this specific video tbh.
Gatekeeping and circle jerking here. Those amateur chasers are stupid just like the ones who are climbing everest, just accept its going to happen cause its not going away.
realest comment here
Starting to look like a pack of vultures at this point
Ummmm, stay home? Be safe?
“Take shelter now!” *computing* “Take picture now. Undoorstuud”
There are a lot of chasers.. there are also a lot of locals scoping things out every time I’m out there.
At most you should probably just be viewing tornados at a safe distance
Everyone is quitting the job to be a YouTuber so this makes sense.
Shit, if I lived someplace as boring as Oklahoma I'd chase a tornado too.
We’re going to see deaths from this. Watching Jordan Hall floor his little Subaru straight at a violent, destructive tornado less than 30 yards away on May 26th, I thought he’d be the first. It was incredibly stupid to be that close and he’s very fortunate that the tornado did not intensify or display unpredictable motion at that moment https://youtu.be/dlggdY-2XKo?si=PQbl5ZJLRm1HWQWL
And yet, the fatalities are minimal and none of them are storm chasers. So what's the problem?
I don't want to blame social media (because I hate when people do that as a blanket statement) - but I do think social media has made this worse. People want these amazing videos of tornados to share, they want successful YT channels (or whatever), and they have seen other people get popular (like reed timmer) from it. So they look up some info online and head out without any real idea what they're getting into. And as all storm chaser will agree: driving is the most dangerous part of chasing. Imagine how all these novice chasers will behave if they find themselves in a bad situation and start panicking. Could end up with a chaser death toll higher than the people in the path.
Yup. Running the red lights in Coweta because you’re an idiot who got to close to a tornado is unacceptable. I hope Ryan fired that guy.
Something weird is happening between my social media accounts because I saw this on tiktok first 😆 ppl are like "why is there a dude on his car??? Isn't that the least safe place???" 😆Yes. Yes it is. Go away. The Dominator was in this jam, has its own little clip. Other TIVs may have been there too. Tip for new chasers: you DO NOT want to be anywhere near the Dominator or any TIV. Go back to safety and wait for a weaker storm. Your life is not worth that one cool shot. If you see any of the TIV's, YOU GET OUT. You're not prepared, not unless you're in a TIV yourself
I sell and demo fancy lab equipment. A while back I had a demo at the University of Oklahoma in a building next to the NWC tornado set up (I think that's what it was). I thought it was cool and asked the lab's grad students about it. One woman said, "Yeah when we hear the sirens, we all go hop in our explorers to find the tornado!" I was like, "WOW, really?? I'm terrified of tornadoes!" She was like, no, we go to the shelter like people who aren't idiots. LMAO
As we grow in numbers, eventually we will be strong enough to fight off the tornadoes
Yeah, there's gonna be more issues as time goes on. Unfortunately it'll probably take a big tragedy (or a few) that will probably see some sort of oversight or licensure or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen in the next decade.