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Rant from a long time chaser: No lessons from El Reno?

Joined
Aug 19, 2005
Messages
333
Location
Atlanta, GA
The other night in TX I was watching what was happening regarding the situation that was going on SW and south of Dallas in regard to the well after dark tornadoes and was frankly appalled by how many people were attempting to chase "up close and personal". The number of SN icons right up next to intense circulations on radar was frankly astonishing to me- as was just the large amount of dots that were in the general area still actively chasing up until at least midnight. First of all: I fail to see what the appeal of chasing after dark in general is unless your aim is to photograph lightning. But every year I see more and more people continuing to chase until all hours of the night.
To me chasing is not a game where the sole goal is to be able to brag later on your twitter account or FB page or on this forum how many tornadoes you "bagged" even if they were only visible for split seconds illuminated by lightning. However, I seem to be in the minority in that regard because of how many people will doggedly follow a supposedly tornadic supercell or even a squall line until 2 or 3 AM even if it is a heavily forested area of somewhere like western AR. If these people were keeping a safe distance it would be one thing but a fair number were very very close- which is IMO a dangerous thing to do even in broad daylight especially if the storm is HP in nature- of course the tragedy and other near misses during the El Reno event is the prime example of that. You never know when a storm will do something you do not expect like produce a satellite tornado, or maybe the road will be blocked-there are a number of scenarios that will potentially reduce your margin of error to 0. With after dark supercells and also with the vast majority of HP storms the best view is from a safe distance anyway- what would you rather see? A shot of a murky low contrast tornado either only visible in the lightning or wrapped in rain or both, or the stunning spaceship/barber pole structure shots that have been seen the past week?

The other thing to note is that this is only April. A lot of people (like me) can only chase for a 1-4 week period every year and most of people in that boat will be out in May or June- I shudder to think what kind of road-clogging messes we well have on Memorial Day weekend if there is a big threat in a small area. So add to the list of dangers several hundred chase vehicles on one highway in the direct path of a monster storm.

The root cause of all this is the (in a lot of cases false) sense of security having real time radar in the vehicle gives to chasers. You can look at the radar, see where the couplet or little shear or TVS icon is in relation to your position and think that is safe to drive right up to it. This ability also allows people who have never chased at all or have very little experience think then can do things that are not really that safe even for someone who has been doing it for 20 or more years.

Bottom line: There was talk after El Reno how that was a "wake up call" but it seems to have had no effect at all on chaser behavior. The clock is ticking to the next inevitable chaser death(s).
 
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You hit the nail right on the head. It's one thing that chasers got too close in El Reno, it's another where it's nighttime, the storms unpredictably kept re-forming new circulations, the road network there was pretty poor with winding roads and the lightning wasn't all that constant. A few of them got nailed with softball sized hail as well!
 
Night-time chasing baffles me as well, as it is considerably more dangerous. I too, have watched a trail of dots driving right up to the bear's front steps at 11:30pm, when I have been on the road home for several hours. I don't want to be accused of trying to "tell people how/what to chase" but I personally don't follow known rotation after dark. Lightning shots are another story, but I can get those from quite a safe distance.

I have met a lot of chasers with degrees of knowledge ranging from "YOU ARE MY IDOL" to "YOU ARE AN IDIOT". I truly wonder how many novice chasers understand radar is NOT real-time or how rapidly a cycling storm can change in that 6 minutes. I have found myself with crappy cell reception looking at 20 minute old radar data and I didn't even notice because I was distracted by the road network or other things (sometimes *I* am the idiot). At least it was daytime and I still had visual cues to keep me out of trouble.
 
Are you talking about the storms on the 26th? I noticed a few people right in there where three cells were lined up back to back and the eastern cell was showing couplet after couplet

How many of them were actually paying attention, or understood the hazards compared to those who knew better
 
Exactly Jason. Some of them just want their 15 minutes of fame by nearly getting themselves killed just so they can have bragging rights. People who chase solely for that reason shouldn't be chasing at all.


Nxsiphos, yeah we're talking about the storms that happened Saturday southwest of dallas-ft. worth. Too many people got too close. Mcrowther's right: it's only a matter of time before another chaser is killed.
 
Chasing has become a game that people play to try to "one up" the next person. Being the next big person to be interviewed by GMA or being the next youtube star is what a LOT of chasers strive for these days. It's just become pathetic. That's just the way it has become.

You nailed it on the head. Regardless of experience or knowledge, being on tv for exposure (or just to be on tv) or building a following on social media is such a dangling carrot for many that they'll stay with a storm til the wee hours of the morning just to get a leg up on the others. Media is insatiable for info, and they oblige chasers with using their info on broadcasts etc. mostly for free. So, more and more get in the game because it's not a hard threshold to reach. So why not chase til 3am covering the storm and being the first report to a violent wedge? And we wonder why the hordes only grow.
 
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You should remember that the Spotter Network icons can be deceiving..If I recall the chaser location is updated every two minutes using the Windows Spotter Network client and the placefile is downloaded once a minute in the GR products, not sure about other display software, so if someone is driving 60 mph, the location could be easily 1-2 miles off if not more depending on the reliability of their mobile connection. I am unsure of how often other clients like RadarScope update the chaser's position.
Then you have the other subject on radar delay, with updates coming in every 2-1/2 to 3 minutes, if we are lucky, now the chaser that appears in the middle of what you think is a tornado could actually be 3-4 miles away from what you think is a tornado.
 
You nailed it on the head. Regardless of experience or knowledge, being on tv for exposure (or just to be on tv) or building a following on social media is such a dangling carrot for many that they'll stay with a storm til the wee hours of the morning just to get a leg up on the others. Media is insatiable for info, and they oblige chasers with using their info on broadcasts etc. mostly for free. So, more and more get in the game because it's not a hard threshold to reach. So why not chase til 3am covering the storm and being the first report to a violent wedge? And we wonder why the hordes only grow.

Yep, I was watching some of your stream Sean and the only other live stream in a good position near Stephenville was from (unnamed) who seemed to be enjoying the fact they were heading purposely into softball size hail with an already damaged windshield, then despite nearly getting severely injured by shards of glass, they laughed off the damage by claiming they would recoup all the costs once their video hit the airwaves...well guess whose video of a windshield shattering shows up in every media outlet the next day? Yep... society as a whole is slowly going insane I think. Nice job on your streaming though, Sean, you at least knew when and where to back off.
 
You should remember that the Spotter Network icons can be deceiving..If I recall the chaser location is updated every two minutes using the Windows Spotter Network client and the placefile is downloaded once a minute in the GR products, not sure about other display software, so if someone is driving 60 mph, the location could be easily 1-2 miles off if not more depending on the reliability of their mobile connection. I am unsure of how often other clients like RadarScope update the chaser's position.
Then you have the other subject on radar delay, with updates coming in every 2-1/2 to 3 minutes, if we are lucky, now the chaser that appears in the middle of what you think is a tornado could actually be 3-4 miles away from what you think is a tornado.

It would be enlightening for someone with some programming skills to develop a program that would account for all of those time lags mentioned above in order to simulate how close people are *really* getting to danger. I found the Bears cage by accident on the Slapout, OK, chase a few years ago and it got my attention real fast and on a permanent basis!
 
Yep, I was watching some of your stream Sean and the only other live stream in a good position near Stephenville was from (unnamed) who seemed to be enjoying the fact they were heading purposely into softball size hail with an already damaged windshield, then despite nearly getting severely injured by shards of glass, they laughed off the damage by claiming they would recoup all the costs once their video hit the airwaves...well guess whose video of a windshield shattering shows up in every media outlet the next day? Yep... society as a whole is slowly going insane I think. Nice job on your streaming though, Sean, you at least knew when and where to back off.


Like i said, some chasers chase to get 15 minutes of fame.
 
I was sitting at home, watching the storms on radar, and then checking Facebook out only to see some Chasers I'm friends with or follow right in the thick of things, mere miles away from the Wedge Tornado that was confirmed.

I see this in two ways, one good and one bad.. First the good, it was helpful to have the reports called in, confirming dangerous tornadoes on the ground. It may have saved lives.

The bad though, while the reports called in were useful, chasers being out that close to tornadoes in the dark risked even more lives. It broke my heart when Tim, Paul and Carl passed away in El Reno, and I swear that each time a Severe Weather "outbreak" is happening, I always pray that no one looses their life, chaser or just someone in the path of a violent storm. I was afraid the other night would see another chaser injured or killed, and thankfully no one was harmed.

If Tim's death didn't open people's eyes and make them think twice about decisions they make while chasing, I don't know what will.
 
I'm pretty much convinced that this is the year we lose one or two who went to a Skywarn class, holding a phone looking for a payday or their fifteen minutes on the Weather Channel, CNN, etc. I'm afraid no matter what we say or do as chasers, we've reached critical mass and people are going to do what they do regardless. All we can do now is act professionally in the field and demonstrate responsible chasing by our own actions.
 
There's nothing wrong with chasing after dark, but only from a safe distance to the south of the storm's track. If a supercell is more classic in nature, tornadoes can be highly visible from miles away and some clear photography/video of lightning+tornadoes can be had. May 12, 2004 Anthony, KS; May 4, 2007 Greensburg; April 9, 2011 Mapleton, IA; May 25, 2012 LaCrosse, KS; June 10, 2004 Red Cloud, NE are just a few examples that come to mind.

That said, there's no reason at all to get close in those situations. I do think the issue may not be as bad as it seems due to the factors Tom pointed out. Even so, just being in the path of the hook at all - if only briefly - isn't a good place to be at night.
 
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