Are Tornado Chasers Getting Too Close?
As this video from KUSA channel 9 in Colorado shows Tim Samaras and his team of researchers came within 50 yards of a tornado on June 1st. Watch the video and read the whole article to see Tim’s perspective of close encounters.
KUSA – At only 23 years old, Andy Gabrielson has seen more adventure than perhaps most people will see in a lifetime. He has been a professional storm chaser for eight years.Sometimes it’s a matter of going out for every event and hoping you get lucky,” he said when asked how he knows where to go to spot a storm.
Gabrielson got incredibly close to a tornado in Baca County Monday afternoon. The video he shot has been shown across the country, including on NBC’s The Today Show, on which he did a live interview on Tuesday morning.
The Luverne, Minnesota resident estimates he was 50 yards from the twister. He has drawn criticism from those who say he was too close.
“It was right there. I didn’t get any closer because that’s where I felt comfortable,” he said, adding he always has an escape route. “If I had to, I had plenty of options to get away.”
Gabrielson does not chase storms full time. He is an online student at Colorado Technical University, majoring in business. He takes the spring and summers off to chase storms and he spends time at his family’s farm helping during harvest time.
Gabrielson often spends hours following storms.
“It’s almost like I stalk the tornado,” he said.
He said he watched Monday’s storm for an hour before seeing rotation.
“Finally, an hour later, after all the shenanigans, we got a nice tornado,” he said.
He adds it was the slowest moving storm he has ever seen.
“The storm was moving very slowly, about 5 to 10 miles per hour. It didn’t really change its course. The tornado, while it was on the ground, it stayed pretty consistent,” he said.
Gabrielson is an independent contractor for the website www.severestudios.com. The company coordinates payment from networks and production companies who buy the video from Gabrielson. Flat rates, which are often charged to networks, can range from $400 to $1,000 for a segment of video. After storm season is over, Gabrielson says production companies looking to do detailed storm stories or documentaries purchase his video for as much as $50 per second.
“I’m out there doing what I love to do,” he said. “It’s cool that people are noticing it and they think it’s cool too. It makes me feel good.”
Gabrielson says he normally chases storms alone. On Tuesday in Baca County, he was accompanied by a friend and an employee of The Weather Channel. At last check Tuesday afternoon, Gabrielson was chasing a storm near the Nebraska/Kansas state lines.
Storm chasing veteran and Colorado resident Tim Samaras said, “There is a definite rather disturbing trend that chasers are getting pretty darn close, uncomfortably close.”
Samaras was also close to Monday’s storm. You can see Samaras’ white pickup in Gabrielson’s video.
Samaras says the distance from a storm or tornado is a judgment call that comes with experience.
“For some, there’s really no technical reason for them to be that close other than to get that extreme video,” Samaras said.
Samaras says he gets close to tornados to collect meaningful scientific data, and to provide the National Weather Service with updates.
Samaras thinks people who treat storm chasing as an extreme sport are risking their lives.
“I think the first chaser death due to a tornado is actually going to be wind-driven debris through the windshield killing a chaser because he just got too close, and had to get the extreme video,” Samaras said.
(KUSA-TV © 2010 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)
