Opinions regarding Reed Timmer from within the chaser community?

[Robert Edmonds]

He is a nice guy the few times we have crossed paths. At the same time it is not throwing him under the bus to say he has not contributed as much to tornado science as many other scientists focused on that area of study.

Compare...
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author:timmer+tornado

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author:samaras+tornado

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=author:wurman+tornado

 

[Todd Lemery]

Without having ever met him personally, no one has posted that he is a jerk or anything. Seems to me that the overall impression from the postings is that he is a genuinely down to earth nice guy. Reed actually makes an effort to collect data, although none may have resulted in any breakthroughs, that doesn't mean it was a waste of time or that there won't be any revelations coming in the future. It takes time to figure out a better way to do things.
The area where he probably shines the most is raising awareness of storms events. Quite honestly, when Reed is on TV telling people to be on their toes, they tend to pay attention to him more than the average guy.
As far as worrying about him unintentionally encouraging others to get themselves in dangerous spots, I can see where that criticism comes from ,but people have to take responsibility for their own actions. "Do not attempt yourself" warnings come to mind as another reminder to not try to be a copycat. If not, you should blame Darwin more than Reed.

 

[rdale]

Reed actually makes an effort to collect data, although none may have resulted in any breakthroughs, that doesn't mean it was a waste of time or that there won't be any revelations coming in the future. It takes time to figure out a better way to do things.

Then post the data if it really exists. Since he hasn't, yet that was the sole stated purpose for collecting data, ...

The area where he probably shines the most is raising awareness of storms events. Quite honestly, when Reed is on TV telling people to be on their toes, they tend to pay attention to him more than the average guy.

When is he on TV?

 

[Todd Lemery]

Hi Dale, good question on the actual data. I honestly don't know what kind of success he's had retrieving data. I know that he has launched (or attempted at times) various probes that I really have no idea how successful they were or weren't. My point was that in trying different probes and experimenting, he may not have gotten (or may have) useful data, but by trial and error he just might come up with one that consistently produces results and changes what we know about tornados.
As far as being on TV, he does do some in station interviews, but I was mostly referring to the live reporting he does during chases with various channels via cell phone

 

[Rob H]

Then post the data if it really exists. Since he hasn't, yet that was the sole stated purpose for collecting data, ...
When is he on TV?

Doesn't he have that deal with KFOR still?

I mean sure, he said he'd be doing research and not much exists yet... but we don't know the circumstances. Even if he's just being lazy, I won't hold that against him. I should be working on my NEXRAD L2 parser right now, but I'm playing Minecraft instead

 

[Marcus Diaz]

I should be doing pictures and videos on this week off I have for medical leave...but I think I'm going to try and beat Fallout 3 again first.

I'm not 100% on the KFOR thing, but I know he's still traveling out of state for chasing. Maybe one of his Doms have to stay in state with a group of people to operate it and report to KFOR. He was doing live reports through last year's major tornado days in the OKC area, but so far this year they haven't had much around the city.

 

[Andrew Clope]

So a few people keep bringing up the data contribution thing. And it's an interesting point. It seems to be that the most misunderstood portion of a tornado (other than why some mesocyclones produce them and some don't), is the lower portion near ground level. I remember him attaching a radar pointing in the vertical along with all of his other instrumentation. I was pretty sure that he had a solid intercept with that setup. So I'm confused as to why that data isn't being talked about? It seems like a data set that would be extremely valuable.

Recently I remember reading that he had one of his parachute probes suspended in the Coleridge, NE tornado for a substantial amount of time. Usually, those probes of his just went up a few feet and then crashed into a nearby field...

I imagine it takes quite a bit of time to process and makes sense of the data gathered? Maybe this is why we haven't heard much from Reeds data research? I don't know how much time it takes, just guessing.

 

[rdale]

It doesn't take this long Comparing the size of his dish versus the real mobile radars, it's more likely that this was a publicity stunt as part of the show versus actual research. Plus as I recall his Master's is in climate research, so I'm not sure he would have spare time to do formal research on tornado data.

 

[Andrew Clope]

Guess we'll never know if it was a publicity stunt or not, but if so... I don't know, kind of changes my perception of him since I thought I've heard him say over and over, how it's all about the science. And I have no problem if it isn't "all about the science" with Reed. Just saying, "I love storms and love chasing them like the rest of you guys" would be perfectly fine too. Totally cool with me. Plenty of us are that way. I sure am.

Maybe that's what the speakers at ChaserCon were getting at. That he seems like more of a publicity stunt at times?

I guess folks like Tim Samaras and Josh Wurman, I believe the statement "It's about the Science." Josh Wurman a little bit more, than dude seems like a robot sometimes. Tim Samaras actually seemed to genuinely love taking it all in from a non scientific standpoint as well.

 

[John Bowles]

It doesn't really matter what data he is or isn't collecting if he isn't publishing it. Researchers can't do anything with data they aren't given.

 

[Greg Campbell]

It doesn't take this long Comparing the size of his dish versus the real mobile radars, it's more likely that this was a publicity stunt as part of the show versus actual research. Plus as I recall his Master's is in climate research, so I'm not sure he would have spare time to do formal research on tornado data.

Given the unit's size, I think his much hyped radar was just a single beam unit, aimed straight up, fixed and non-steerable. Data from this would give vertical velocity vs. height for a narrow column within a storm. Vertical data dovetails nicely with the horizontal velocities measured by a remote DOW or WSR88D. I have a very vague recollection of glancing at one of Wurman's papers that mentioned vertical radar data, possibly from RT's unit.

On a more personal level, as a card-carrying introvert and only child, I find Reed's volume knob (stuck on 11?) to be profoundly obnoxious, inducing a powerful stress stimulus. If my passenger was screaming at me the way I've seen him behave on many occasions (and not just on the SC show), I would literally be in an uncontrollable rage after just a few minutes. His front teeth would be in grave danger! Loud, overbearing control freaks and I do not get along!

His antics on TeeVee have done nothing to offset my initial "Screaming egocentric idiot!" emotional response. His willingness to go along with Discovery and obediently parrot the "It's for the science" line was indefensible. IMO, his low point was running through the fresh debris, camera in tow, screaming 'There's a victim" etc. Pure sensationalist, exploitive crap!

 

[Warren Faidley]

Lets be easy on Mr. Timmer. He's "saving lives." Maybe thousands from his research, disaster responses, live reports and emergency posts.

W.

 

[Taylor Wright]

I think it's funny that a whole thread was started on this, but my overall impression of him is positive. He's doing what he loves. Obviously he's very passionate about it like the rest of us. I've recently watched a lot of his Tornado Chasers stuff. It seems that he'll call off a chase and do search and rescue when it's needed. I rarely see him publicly claim to be saving lives with his research or anything like that. Although he seems to have a lot of trouble successfully deploying a probe into a tornado. He usually just flaunts the "extreme" adjective a lot which is probably accurate. The raw footage episode he has is probably some of the best footage I've seen, and he didn't put anyone's life in danger to get it.

I do believe he is (or his exposure) along with social media is the cause of this new wave of extreme chasers whom risk their lives for footage. A lot of these "extreme chasers" don't know what they are doing, and it's only a matter of time until someone gets killed. Just my two cents.

 

[rdale]

Lets be easy on Mr. Timmer. He's "saving lives." Maybe thousands

Ha I think he claimed 573,328.5 when I last checked (still not sure where the half life came from...)

 

[Dan Robinson]

All chasers are more alike in our motives and love for storms than we care to admit. Some simply have opportunity come their way more than others. That can be either due to luck, excelling in chasing, or by having good business sense. Think of if someone came to you with an offer of all-expenses-paid chasing plus a budget to do/build whatever you wanted. What would you do? I'd guess that any one of us would probably end up doing similar things.