Storm Chasing: Ethics and Safety

[Paul Schmit]

As a relatively new chaser hoping to learn as much as I can from the immeasurable sum of wisdom accumulated on this forum, I applaud and highly encourage any and all discussion on the topics of safety, ethics, and strategy--none of which should be considered mutually exclusive (e.g., adopting a safer, more conservative chase strategy is ethically considerate toward other chasers, perhaps allowing everyone a wider margin to exercise their escape plans in the event of an uncommon sequence of events). The very dismissive and resigned comments on this particular thread chastising those who want to pursue such thoughtful discussions are entirely counterproductive. Yes, you might not be able to change the reckless behavior of those who choose to put themselves in undue danger deliberately and simultaneously jeopardize the wellbeing of others through their erratic actions behind the wheel, all the time avoiding the buffer provided by becoming better informed in between chases, except perhaps by calling them out and condemning their actions directly in the public square. BUT, you can certainly teach those with a real desire to learn how best to avoid such "whackos" and keep situationally aware on all fronts--weather, traffic, and otherwise.

For some time I was a recreational skydiver, and while that community is perhaps more frequented by the truly eccentric and haphazard than any other "extreme" activity, I have to give them credit for doing a great job putting together a central regulating organization, instituting a licensing protocol, and disseminating a code of ethics and standard operating procedure that permits each individual skydiver a certain amount of "comfort" and confidence in knowing that the people around him/her have been briefed on how to partake in such a risky sport safely and ethically. There are technical aspects to skydiving, and there are many more technical aspects to storm chasing, and some fraction of individuals interested in pursuing such a hobby will inevitably disregard the wealth of helpful information that is out there in order to get to the "meat" of the pursuit on the fast track. But the reckless abandon of the outliers, the bottom tail of the bell curve, should not discourage responsible and passionate storm chasers from organizing and enhancing the common level of understanding of the majority of enthusiasts who would jump at the opportunity to benefit from the wisdom of others, in person or through the written word.

My first Great Plains chase was 5/19 of this year, by myself (still looking for a more experienced chase partner), as I recently relocated to Albuquerque after finishing grad school in NJ (bad chasing conditions all around) and spending the rest of my early life in Arizona (mesmerized by the annual monsoon pattern). I adopted an extremely conservative strategy for safety's sake (staying west of the dryline at initiation and following a few miles behind the Edmond and Shawnee supercells, never finding a gap to get south/southeast of the updraft bases for a real glimpse of the action), knowing full well I am light on operational experience. But even so, I realized in hindsight that chasing within the OKC city-limits was probably still ethically dubious, and at the very least wasn't doing me any favors in terms of keeping myself optimally safe. While the opportunities for me to learn in the field have only just begun, and will undoubtedly only occur a few times a year, the opportunities for me to develop my intellectual confidence and learn new tactics for safety and strategy are endless on forums like these. If chasers some day rally behind the outspoken veterans and become better organized, I'll be the first to sound the call and support such an effort. In the meantime, no attempt to standardize the best practices of a risky but ultimately rewarding endeavor through thoughtful discussion (on a forum whose primary mission should BE such discussions) should ever be dismissed. From a somewhat selfish standpoint, you might be robbing people like me of a nugget of insight that could save my hide some day.

 

[rdale]

If you count each chaser as a brand new chaser each day he goes out, maybe.

Exactly. 50 chasers that get 50 storms a season = 2500 chasers around storms that year. Between chasers, spotters, cops, yahoos, etc X 40 years that seems reasonable. If not, still a LOT more than climb Mount Everest every year (150) and those efforts kill 5 annually. I don't hear the world complaining that those climbs need to stop.

 

[mikedeason]

I don't hear the world complaining that those climbs need to stop.

There's not many congested public highways that the public has to share as those climbers ascend Mt. Everest either. The apple and oranges argument doesn't hold water when an endeavor is not done in a contained venue, but instead on public roads and highways.

The actions of mountain climbers, skydivers, etc. puts no one else at risk other the ones who are also performing the same actions and accepting the same risks. A modest to large volume of chasers, if concentrated in a small area, CAN pose a potential hazard to members of the general public and their actions are under much more scrutiny.

 

[rdale]

Well I suppose they CAN, but to this day I know of no evidence that they have or will actually post a hazard to the general public.

 

[Shane Adams]

The problem has and always will be LOCALS. For the past several years, as authorities whine and bitch about the influx of chaser numbers ruining their desolate, 2-car-a-day rural roads, the issue has actually been all the folks who live in and around these little towns. And last Friday in the OKC metro, after being told to flee their homes, it was like a hurricane evacuation. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of cars jammed up well away from cities and towns, on rural stretches of state highways, gridlocked. Any tornado would've wiped out many of us as we sat there helpless. I only saw one chase vehicle during all of this - us.

Take any number of the few hundred "chasers" around a given storm near a given town, and I guarantee 90% of them don't "chase" outside that county. This happens around every town that's ever affected by tornadic storms. Chasers are the most visible, so they of course get the blame. The part that pisses me off is, the local authorities who bitch at us really need to be looking around at their own townspeople.

Perhaps someone should finally get this memo up to Kansas, which has had a bug up its ass about chasers for far too long. And quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing about it. You don't like chasers, deal with it. You don't like lots of vehicles clogging your back roads, then create a law that keeps all citizens inside their homes during a tornado warning. Fix the problem where it lies instead just pissing out a new news article in a Wichita paper every 4 months about how crappy chasers are.

99% of us do it the right way, therefore this thread isn't even relevant to people like us. And like someone already mentioned: the people who NEED this thread won't even consider its contents. Chasing is what it is. Emotions and reactions are high because we're still so close to a tragedy. In a month it'll be back to normal, and everyone will be moving forward as they normally do. Those of us who know how to do it right will still be doing it right, and the tiny %age that's a problem will still be a problem. That's humanity.

 

[Jesse Risley]

As a relatively new chaser hoping to learn as much as I can from the immeasurable sum of wisdom accumulated on this forum, I applaud and highly encourage any and all discussion on the topics of safety, ethics, and strategy--none of which should be considered mutually exclusive (e.g., adopting a safer, more conservative chase strategy is ethically considerate toward other chasers, perhaps allowing everyone a wider margin to exercise their escape plans in the event of an uncommon sequence of events). The very dismissive and resigned comments on this particular thread chastising those who want to pursue such thoughtful discussions are entirely counterproductive. Yes, you might not be able to change the reckless behavior of those who choose to put themselves in undue danger deliberately and simultaneously jeopardize the wellbeing of others through their erratic actions behind the wheel, all the time avoiding the buffer provided by becoming better informed in between chases, except perhaps by calling them out and condemning their actions directly in the public square. BUT, you can certainly teach those with a real desire to learn how best to avoid such "whackos" and keep situationally aware on all fronts--weather, traffic, and otherwise.

I have to take issue with that comment, from a strictly respectful point of disagreement. I saw no ill intent by anyone to be "dismissive, resigned" or otherwise "chastising" towards those who share opposing viewpoints, and I don't think anyone was saying it shouldn't be discussed. After all, this is a message board, and that's what it exists for. However, just as you have a strong, well-articulated stance on the matter, so do others, so I would caution confusing disagreement with suggestions that no one can or should discuss the matter, as you might have gotten the wrong idea from some posters, including myself.

If you are newer, as you stated, then a search of the forum archives will reveal that this topic gets brought up at least once or twice per season, and it is always a popular media show after a major tornado or an actual outbreak. Some of us simply feel that the concept (i.e., legal regulation and/or internal ethics enforcement vis-a-vis a professional organization), while perhaps well-intended, is mostly impractical due to the uniqueness of storm chasing as opposed to other hobbies or professions. That doesn't mean we're not willing to debate, discuss, listen or facilitate civil discourse on the topic, and thus far I thought everyone did a fairly decent job of doing so without going ad hominem on others across the aisle. This also doesn't mean that there isn't room to learn from what happened last Friday, or that everyone wouldn't benefit from having a serious internal conversation about safety and storm chasing - just know that human beings are unique and disagreement shouldn't always be taken as a personal affront.

 

[Rob H]

I'm still inclined to say it's a pointless endeavor, *but* - I kind of see his point. We could at least try to establish some standards if we think it would help. If people listened everytime someone said an idea wasn't feasible we'd still be stuck back in the dark ages.

Form an organization, try to confer some sort of benefits to joining (a hat and a discount to Allisonhouse? I have no idea), hold members to standards, get big names on board. Have private webcasts for members where Chuck Doswell talks about some new thing at CIMSS or whatever. It would at least give new chasers an *idea* of where to start the right way, instead of just trial by fire like we do now. Maybe a real effort like this could also prompt the media to distinguish between a "chaser" and a local/whacker/whatever, and the association between chaser and reckless adrenaline junky would start to disappear.

Instead of trying to find reasons why it wouldn't work, maybe we should try to find ways to make it work.

 

[Jake Orosi]

Exactly. It doesn't have to be a matter of licensing; and being a hobby it doesn't even have to rise to the standard of a professional organization.

My other hobby is beekeeping, and there are local, regional, and national-level associations. You never need to join a one of them to keep bees, but there are benefits to doing so - first and foremost educational resources. These associations don't "dictate" a particular style of beekeeping or a set-in-stone standard methodology as a requirement for membership; but when you have those well-known, respected, and ethical personalities that are interacting with younger/newer membership, that ethical standard just tends to osmote because by and large newbies tend to want to emulate those old hands.

Obviously local clubs aren't a viable model; they're usually insular and whackerish and there just aren't that many chasers to begin with, compared to the average population in small area. But large-scale regional or national associations? I think we can do that. And given the subject matter a sort of pledge of ethics wouldn't be inappropriate either.

 

[STexan]

But LE does not distinguish between "trained chaser" and "local adrenaline junky". I think before the conversation is to continue further we need to distinguish if that additional training and "class time" is going to mean anything in the heat of the storm to anybody. Is the training going to get anyone the benefit of the doubt in a given situation. If not, then it would seem to be a doomed for failure as reality rears it's ugly head as it does with some unusual storms with unusual circumstances and events, especially in the prime locations near OKC, Wichita, Tulsa, etc where the dynamics of storm chasing change considerably.

You think the Tamaras team and others there didn't have significant training and "continuing education credits" and technology? And we see how that turned out. I think the need for "safety and ethics standards" speaks for itself and those that don't understand or embrace this are going to be a problem regardless what the responsible chasers do. Maybe when all is said and done, there would be some sort of visible distinction between trained chaser and not, but I'm unsure what that could ultimately mean come storm time.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I think some sort of organization like the the NRA is a great idea, experienced leaders would need to step up but I think it's feasible. Posted this a year ago....


http://www.stormtrack.org/forum/showthread.php?28934-County-Officials-Critical-of-Storm-Chasers&p=322279#post322279

 

[Jake Orosi]

But LE does not distinguish between "trained chaser" and "local adrenaline junky". I think before the conversation is to continue further we need to distinguish if that additional training and "class time" is going to mean anything in the heat of the storm to anybody. Is the training going to get anyone the benefit of the doubt in a given situation. If not, then it would seem to be a doomed for failure as reality rears it's ugly head as it does with some unusual storms with unusual circumstances and events, especially in the prime locations near OKC, Wichita, Tulsa, etc where the dynamics of storm chasing change considerably.

You think the Tamaras team and others there didn't have significant training and "continuing education credits" and technology? And we see how that turned out. I think the need for "safety and ethics standards" speaks for itself and those that don't understand or embrace this are going to be a problem regardless what the responsible chasers do. Maybe when all is said and done, there would be some sort of visible distinction between trained chaser and not, but I'm unsure what that could ultimately mean come storm time.

Well there's really only one way to find out! The bonus is that training and class time certainly won't hurt anybody if it's presented the right way, whether or not it leads to a sea change in chasing. The people who aren't interested simply won't attend the classes or training rides; the people who are interested will extract great value from them. Will it keep them from ever winding up in danger? No, as we have sadly seen. But even that tragedy has teaching value - do you think Tim Samaras would've objected?

And still or not, even if chasers aren't necessarily made safer by the training, their hobby experience is made richer. There's people who can't extract anything useful from a radar image outside of "classic supercell shape" and "that little notch is where the tornado would be, right?". I bet there's any number of chasers who see velocity mode as unintelligible gibberish and never use it. What the heck is a skew-T and why should we care what it says anyway? Mesoscale discussions - they might pick out an occasional word they recognize, like "east" or "the", but the rest of it may as well be Cyrillic. I even suspect that most dot-chasers deep down inside don't want to be dot-chasers, but they're intimidated by all the lines and numbers it looks like they'd have to learn in order to evolve. All those people can be helped.

 

[rdale]

...and nothing has happened in that year. No laws. No bans. No regulations.

Instead of throwing out ideas to see if any stick, convince us naysayers with an actual plan for raising money, obtaining buyin, and providing benefits.

 

[Paul Schmit]

Jesse,

Thanks for your very thoughtful response. I hope my comments didn't come off as hypercritical. Chastise might not have been entirely appropriate (except perhaps those who initially thought the thread itself was disrespectful toward our fallen comrades), but I do think the individualistic "chase and let chase" mantra falls a little bit within this dismissive line of thought. As an experienced chaser, I'm sure you probably leap at the opportunity to pass on your wisdom to others, especially those who truly seek to learn with enthusiasm and an open mind. So perhaps that's why it strikes a chord with me when the dialogue incorporates absolute statements akin to, "no matter what we do or say, or how we try to standardize, we will never be able to fix the problem created by the less knowledgeable and more reckless 'chasers' out there." But I realize that this sort of statement isn't advocating a total abandonment of constructive discussion on boards like these. I apologize if I made it seem that way.

Maybe complimentary to Warren's allusion to Darwinism sorting things out, perhaps a more unified organization of serious chasers, perhaps even with designated spokespeople, will serve to drown out the "extreme" and reckless elements who currently get the lion's share of media coverage. If the most responsible among us are also the most inclined to respectfully bow out of the public conversation, then it will be that much harder to make a dent in the trajectory of the decline of storm chasing's public image.

As for STexan's question whether formal training will amount to any better decision-making in the field, in the heat of the moment, I'll just offer up a personal anecdote from my time as a skydiver. In skydiving, to obtain an entry-level license and be allowed to jump with another individual (who is not an instructor), you have to go through a roughly 6 hour ground school (which mostly teaches emergency procedures for the myriad issues you can run into up there), as well as ~25 training jumps with a progressive ascension in difficulty. However, after ~10 jumps you are already cleared to jump by yourself. With no one there to help you and very little time to react, the training is *everything*, and it is the only thing that can save your butt in a crisis. I had one particular jump where I passed my deployment altitude and couldn't find the handle to my pilot chute. Within a second or two I recalled the classroom instruction I received that told us to run our hands down the line of the container from mid-back to butt, and sure enough, the handle was wedged between my body and the container. I managed to deploy at a marginally safe altitude and the crisis was averted. I bring this up only to suggest that if formal instruction provided me key insight in a situation where I had only seconds to react, surely a large percentage of chasers would be able to utilize protocol for safety and strategy in an environment where the time to react is more likely >1 minute, several minutes if one has left oneself a better margin for contingencies. But you're right that the proof is in the pudding. I, for one, would love to see things formalized a bit more, if only to allow the best practices to rise to the top through some form of democratic consensus among those who know best.

 

[Jeff Duda]

I was just kind of hoping this tragedy would cause individuals to change their chasing strategies when it comes to mesocyclones and tornadoes, especially on days where the atmosphere is particularly volatile (i.e., high CAPE/high shear/high risk).

I understand the basic ethics and safety of a storm chaser. Basically they're the same ethics and safety rules that apply to driving on public roads in the US and to rock concerts - play hard and play smart, but follow the rules and pick up your fellow man when he goes down.

Everyone has a survival instinct - that little voice in their head that talks them out of doing something that is likely to kill them. I think my survival instinct kicks in at a lower threshold of danger than it does for other chasers. I tend to get nervous and worried once hail larger than an inch or two begins bombarding my car (especially when I can't see where the meso/tornado may be) or when the wind begins to increase and turn in towards where the meso/tornado is likely to be. Then I simply stop, take a few deep breaths, and go back the way I came in. I did this exact thing in NW Texas on May 23. I was chasing alone in unfamiliar territory in King County, which is about as rural as it gets since there are only two highways that go through the county. I was no longer getting radar updates (I was data-dead) and the CGs were getting uncomfortably close. I saw a base pop out of the rain well to my SW, but I also saw a base directly in front of me. Then the moderate rain turned into hailstones which got progressively larger. By the time they were going over 1" in size I had had enough. I was not 100% sure what was going on (the storm was moving in an atypical direction at an atypical orientation and was shape-shifting), and rather than be brash and possibly get my car bashed to s--t just to get in front of it, I stopped and turned back and tried to find another way around the storm.

It is my hope that the number of close calls and deaths from this event will cause everyone's survival instinct to kick in at a lower threshold. I do not support any legislation that would ban chasing given the complexities and difficulties with enforcing it, especially as it relates to the freedom of driving on public roads. But I hope people pick up on this message, which is usually what goes through my mind the instant my survival instinct kicks in:

Before you decide to punch that core or drive into that bear's cage: literally take a minute to stop and think about the consequences of your actions. Realize that what you're doing could kill you. You are not invincible, and you don't know the future. One misstep or one miscalculation and you're dead. Is your life really worth getting the shot that no one else got or getting closer than anyone else?

 

[Sean Ramsey]

...and nothing has happened in that year. No laws. No bans. No regulations.

Instead of throwing out ideas to see if any stick, convince us naysayers with an actual plan for raising money, obtaining buyin, and providing benefits.

Benefits: Centralized organization, public representation, opportunity for endorsement from law enforcement, government officials, metorology community (?) a voice against any legislation (if any is proposed), a clear distinction from public yahoo's, an acutal community that could bond chasers even tighter. Centralized voice to the media, clear distinction from non-members who don't follow safe practices (as determined by leadership?)

Buyin: Official endorsements from the organizations above recognizing safe practices, experienced chasers and meteorology members, pre-coordination with local officials...which would really be beneficial on PDS days like Friday.

Memberships - Dues, conferences, whatever to raise money. Pay some salaries (part time? full time?) to elected officials with enough money raised...if there's as many chasers as was stated this shouldn't be an issue.

These are just ideas and details would need to be worked out, but a group of well respected organized chasers could plant the seed and the timing couldn't be better for something like this. I'd join.