Storm Chasers

[peppy]

[GH85Carrera]

All the local TV stations go to “wall to wall” constant coverage. No commercials nothing but the stations chasers, and radar. We watch KWTV with a dual pole million watt state of the art radar.
Several tornadoes tonight south of OKC.

The helicopter had some amazing images of the clouds and storms.

[Tobra]

Helicopter and tornado are not words that should occur in the same sentence, unless there is some variation on the phrase, "eff that noise" inserted on the right spot

[GH85Carrera]

The KWTV helicopter pilot has been chasing storms in the air for decades. He has some astonishing video shot from the air. He knows where to be to be safe, however just last month a brick size chunk of hail smashed through the canopy and hit him in the leg. He landed safely at the airport and they got it fixed. No damage to the pilot.



The station owns two helicopters. The other one was in a hangar and staged to be ready to cover the tornadoes, but the tornado found the helicopter first, and destroyed it in the hangar. The tail was cut off from beams of the hanger falling on it.

[Gooch1971]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

The KWTV helicopter pilot has been chasing storms in the air for decades. He has some astonishing video shot from the air. He knows where to be to be safe, however just last month a brick size chunk of hail smashed through the canopy and hit him in the leg. He landed safely at the airport and they got it fixed. No damage to the pilot.



The station owns two helicopters. The other one was in a hangar and staged to be ready to cover the tornadoes, but the tornado found the helicopter first, and destroyed it in the hangar. The tail was cut off from beams of the hanger falling on it.

I hadn't heard about the 2nd helicopter. My grandfather's farm (deceased now) was at the corner of HWY 74 and HWY 74B (the Cole Road). That corner is 3 miles South of I-35 at the Golsby exit. It would have been a rough month for him and the cows if he were still there.

[GH85Carrera]

They got the windshield replaced ASAP and he was flying again quickly. The other chopper will likely be scrapped, or extensive work needed. Most likely the insurance will just replace it as they want to be in the air. The entire tail section was chopped off, and the main rotor was mangled and broken.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Tobra

Helicopter and tornado are not words that should occur in the same sentence, unless there is some variation on the phrase, "eff that noise" inserted on the right spot

Yet another helo-hater

What is interesting, and I HAVE NOT flown around tornado's but I have water spouts, is that the air below the cloud deck and a mile or so from the "event" is often very nice.

Weirdly so.

BTW, has anyone here actually chased a storm, air or ground?

I have never seen one. The closest I came was when I was living in Millington, TN during the week.

Twice the sky had an energy hard to describe.

[GH85Carrera]

I have lived in Oklahoma since 1978. We had one almost chasing us!


We had just moved in back in March of that year. It looks like it is in my back yard, but it was actually 1.5 miles south of us. And yea, that is me walking around in the driveway. I was listening with my hands cupped to me ears and could not hear a thing. No roaring train sounds. It was cool in that it looked like a stack of pancakes with that tornado dropping down from the middle. My wife was in the guest bathroom, in the bathtub, wearing my autocross helmet, with two dachshunds in the tub with her. I so much wish I had taken he picture, but she threatened me with bodily harm when I was asleep if I took that photo. The photo is a screen capture from a video my across the street neighbor shot and took to the TV station.

It did touch down in the parking lot of an amusement park and it tossed some cars around.

Now we have an underground storm shelter in the garage. We can get down there easily with the 911 parked above it. In the 20+ years of the shelter we have only gone down there once with storms approaching. We got it all ready last night, but they all went way south of us.

I saw a pair of tornadoes off in the distance near Stillwater, OK returning from Hallett, OK. Those were off to the side of me, and I was happy to take the interstate south and GTFO out of the area.

My grandparents on both sides of the family liven in Oklahoma from 1900 until the died and they never saw one. My mom never saw one either.

[Seahawk]

^^^ Wow. I would not have known, as my Grandfather used to say, whether to shiit, stand or stampede in the face of that.

[Tobra]

When we lived in Texas, my wife saw a tornado over the lake. She ran out to the end of a 400 foot dock to take a picture, but the camera was out of film.

Running out on a dock with a tornado a mile away seems ill advised.

[GH85Carrera]

That tornado, like virtually of them around here move mostly to the northeast. I first saw it off to the west, a bit south of our house.

I could tell it was not moving towards us, and in fact going south of us.

When the one from 1998 above was coming through, the TV stations were all showing RADAR of the storm-track, and projecting it's path. The guy across the street was filming it, and several other neighbors were out looking at it.

https://data.sctimes.com/tornado-archive/oklahoma/

Here is a web site that can suck up some time. Virtually all areas of the country have had tornadoes. You can set the state, and either look at all tornadoes, or a particular year. Check out your area, and report back what tornadoes have been recorded.

One weird thing, the one in my photo above does not appear on this web site at all. It had just one house get some wind damage, and the few cars tossed around in the parking lot of the amusement park.

[flipper35]

We had one touch down in the cornfield across the interstate near Dekalb IL. It was close enough it sucked the passenger window out of its tracks. Found out that day thw computer shut the fuel off at 125mph and the highway patrol will not pull you over in that situation.

[flatbutt]

I was watching live coverage of the tornadoes in Iowa yesterday. That's some terrifying weather!

Hoping for the best for all.

[unclebilly]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

Yet another helo-hater

BTW, has anyone here actually chased a storm, air or ground?

I have never seen one. The closest I came was when I was living in Millington, TN during the week.

Twice the sky had an energy hard to describe.

Yup, small ones here in Alberta in 1997. At the time tornados in this area were new and novel (the first notable one was in the late 80s near Edmonton). Now every summer there is tornado warnings… we don’t mess around anymore.

[GH85Carrera]

There was a long article in today's paper about the huge surge in Tornado tourism. There are over a dozen companies running storm-chasing tours. Tourist from all over the world come to see tornadoes. The professionals out doing a job really hate it, as the tourists are in the way and clogging the roads and making it more dangerous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_El_Reno_tornado

This one in 203 was a MILE wide! And moving across the ground at over 60 MPH. Four professional storm chasers were killed as they could not get out of the way fast enough.

[Bugsinrugs]

Question, are tornadoes unique to the US?

[GH85Carrera]

No. Not at all.

The central part of the US has the perfect terrain and location for gulf moisture and winds from the Rockies to give the area the nickname of tornado alley.

Europe and Asia have tornadoes. Even Russia. Just not as often.

[Tobra]

It is not that I hate a helo, I just had a traumatic experience as a lad that eliminated my interest in riding in one.

Apparently, you have to fly to stay qualified, which makes sense. Ship was in dry dock in Long Beach, everyone lived in Sandy Eggo. Typically would go home on weekends. There was a little lottery deal, 3 spots to ride with the Captain, I won and got to go. I guess if you are a Captain, it is like checking a book out of the library or something to get the keys to a helo.

He went out over the water right away. Flew much lower than I though prudent, if I want to look at fish, I will take a canoe. All that sky above us, going to waste. I was not familiar with the performance capabilities of a small helicopter. It turns out they can make some moves that don't seem consistent with my understanding of physics, at one point I was sort of looking up at the water. Nobody threw up, so that was pretty cool.

I have a patient that is a Vietnam era pilot. They fixed bullet holes in the rotor blades with freakin' tape. Sea Story, has to be. Turns out it is true. GD plastic fish bowl with tape on the propeller. Yeah, totally safe

It is amazing what an otherwise normal seeming guy is willing to do when you give him an aircraft.