"Tensions Grow Between Tornado Scientists and Storm Chasers"

[Rob H]

My point earlier was kind of glossed over, and it's my fault for trying to be subtle. It's obvious that some people get emotional about this subject and I don't want to offend anyone.

V2 will advance science, although I'm not expecting any paradigm shifts. Right now, the best collaborative effort amongst chasers is strangely enough on these forums. I've seen a handful of threads in the last few months that have included multiple viewpoints and have discussed unknown aspects of meteorology - which is exciting to me. There are some individuals out there that document and detail obscure chases and events that help us understand the fringe cases better. This is where I'm hoping the next breakthrough will come from. It might be some guy launching a potato canon probe into a tornado, or walking into a tornado, or maybe it will be Reed driving into a tornado. Someone is going to have a light bulb go off in their head and it will change things.

V3 isn't going out anytime soon, and Josh was venting from one chase. He took flak for it, and he went into defense mode. When is the next time we're going to have to hear about this on the TV - 2018? We won't have to deal with something of this nature again for at least several years most likely. Politicians have a whole host of more important issues to deal with right now, so ambitious projects like V2 may be on the back burner for some time unless there's something in the works I'm not aware of.

I saw plenty of V2 on 6/10 and they were very pleasant towards us - as obvious chasers. Three members of our group even got the grand tour from some V2 people on 6/09 during their downtime.

Maybe this thread should be renamed "Tensions Grow Between Josh Wurman and Storm Chasers", because that's the only thing I'm sold on and it seems to be a two-way street.

 

[Jeff Passner]

Yes, this is now a good discussion with some excellent opinions. I guess, what set me off last night was the arrogance displayed by Wurman and others. Look, I've been in the field of meteorology since 1985 or even longer if you include college years, but I'm repulsed by the arrogance displayed in this science. I have NOTHING against VORTEX. I know many of the people involved and have complete respect for their goals and work. Some are my friends. I was in the same Stripes parking lot on Tuesday in Carlsbad, NM. VORTEX does not bother me one bit, but sadly the arrogance of one person who represents VORTEX is the issue. And yes, that one person does represent the full project. He may not carry the same views as the other 90 people, but it was HIS voice heard on TV and by the media. I give Shane some credit for speaking the truth here and it's a truth and reality that this science must accept. Most of the people in VORTEX know this: it's years and years away before we can really understand how tornadoes are generated. The science will benefit from VORTEX but I'll still say we now know about 90 percent or more that we'll ever know about meteorology. Right now, is the most difficult part --- we're heading from the mesoscale to the microscale and I know very well the frustration of doing that, because I do it every day at work. It's one of the most amazing, yet challenging, things that scientists have attempted. We are trying to understand the atmopshere at 1-km scales or less.

My whole point here is: It's time for the meteorologists of the world to stop talking down to others. Even if you've published 100 papers, you are no better or worse than ANYONE else on this board or in this science. I don't care if it's some 17-year-old on this board who just likes storms and chases or it's some 72-year-old who drives 1,000 miles to see a storm... Every chaser deserves respect and that's Wurman's mistake. He put himself and his research ahead of the rest of the world. And it makes us ALL look bad.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

This is how i digress i would say all chasers should avoid V2 and let them pass, my view is to treat them as LEO's just let them pass and do their job. I would be frustrated if i was getting millions of dollars to conduct research and people that are reporting severe weather were in my way when i could do the same thing, its not like V2 aren't reporting to CWA's. In the end we claim to be all about saving lives they are doing the exact same thing but collecting data i'd let them pass, i just don't know what the big fuss is about.

That is a quote from Mike's post. Not trying to call you out here Mike. I just wanted to use your comment to make a point.
If you were getting millions of dollars to conduct research you probably wouldn't have a down day during a moderate risk either.
The vast majority of people are getting their weather coverage and information from TV and radio (not weather radio). V2 brings nothing to the table with that.
Everybody has their reasons for being out there. There shouldn't be a big discussion about whose purpose has more merit or is more noble than the other guys. The only reason it is being brought up is because Wurman is trying to take the stance that his cause is the most noble of all and other people on the storm should yeild to him. IMO thats laughable. Everybody is playing by the same set of rules out there.
I saw V2 a handful of times this year. I never once saw them being hindered except for that day in Oklahoma. So of the dozens of chases they took part in thats the one he keeps coming back to? One day they were slowed down because of a lot of chasers on an HP supercell in Oklahoma. What I'm about to say is a joke and not meant to be taken seriously. Maybe if Wurman spent as much time working on his forecasting as he does bitching about other chasers the highlight of his season wouldn't be a ****ty HP storm in Oklahoma lol. Meanwhile no complaints about him sitting in the lobby of a Super 8 while a long track EF4 is taking place a state away lol. So which one of those two cases had a bigger impact on the science???

 

[Terry Kern]

@ Shane Adams. Excellent blog.

 

[Andrew Stoller]

"Chasers rarely offer useful information".

I guess Val Castor, Gary England, and all the media spotters/chasers around OKC should just give it up. No need for ground truth to help warn the citizens of EXACTLY what is happening on the ground. Dr. Wurman can fill the void left behind. He's got to be a better chaser then those guys who have been doing it professionally for media and local emergency management agencies for decades.

 

[Wes Carter]

I have a feeling that Dr. Wurman might have become more of a liability than an asset to severe weather research. His involvement in reality television and helping a Hollywood filmmaker find his way into a tornado certainly captured the imaginations of the American public. So much so that Storm Chasers is now one of the Discovery Channel's most popular programs. That's good for the Discovery Channel and it's advertisers. Maybe it's not so good for V2.

This popularity coupled with live reports from Mike Bettis disclosing the location of V2 on a daily basis definitely had an impact on the number of cars on the road. Dr. Wurman's public attempts to shift the blame to the 'amateur chaser' communty seem to me to be nothing more than red herrings to proactively draw attention away from his contributions to the convergence problem.

We are getting into a heated debate amongst ourselves, but I think Dr. Wurman's red herrings are starting to stink and we are not the only ones smelling them.

 

[Aaron Estman]

Shane Adams should write a freaking book....

Great blog Shane.... My favorite line:

"And this chaser don't brake for muggles."

Bravo.

 

[Jason Young]

Way to go Shane , he wrote it like it is . Great job man !

 

[Andrew Stoller]

If Dr. Wurman hadn't teamed up with Sean Casey and done the show "Storm Chasers" (gee, isn't that the very people he's berating?), his condemnation of chasers and chaser convergences interfering with scientific research might have some credibility. However, the fact he was on the show, helping a "storm chaser" (who's vehicle and convoy in and of themselves create a rolling roadblock wherever they go - well, when they're not blatantly breaking traffic laws) get the ultimate shot for an IMAX video about storm chasing of all things, makes him a bit of a hypocrite. He engaged in and fostered the reality he's upset about.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

I have spoken to one working with V2, who is a very avid chaser, doing photography for them. I touched the subject on why there was no chase on May 22 in SD and was told it was due to "logistics" (getting the mass of people and crew up there "in time").

Three days is plenty of time. I can see them missing the WY stuff on May 21, but May 22 seemed "un missable" had V2 tried with getting up there. Then there was May 24 and 31. May 24 was a rather long shot to Faith, SD. Catching that one meant missing the May 23 stuff in KS. Had they chase May 22, and not blasted to KS on the 23, then maybe they could have made the SD stuff on the 24th.

I am not sure if they chased the stuff in KS on the 23 (I did that and I left Aberdeen in SD that morning, helped with a damage survey near Bowdle, then made the storms and caught 3 tornadoes in SW Kansas.

May 31, like myself, seemed to be such a low potential (2% tornado) for a trip to SE CO. But a roll of the dice would have paid off in a meaty way had I (and V2) gone. May 25 was a GREAT day in W KS / SE Colorado and I saw 7+ tornadoes and landspouts that day. V2 WAS on that.

But true, and unfortunately, V2 did NOT make the best of 2010. IMO, May 22 and June 17 would have been the "Holy Grail" of tornado research had those 2 events alone been "landed" and studied :-(

The point I am trying to make here is that as a solo chaser, planning for the next day ahead of a chase day is also very important. For example, if you are chasing in SD one day, and there is an outlook / setup in KS the next day, it's simple ... Stay in a place like Valentine, NE (or even North Platte) so you can easily "make" the target the next day. Try considering adjustments as well. I think this tactic can work as a solo, group, or huge group (aka V2) as well.

 

[Jeff Passner]

Well, I'll just add one other thing... For VORTEX it's more than just the logicistics of a chase --- it's the cost. They had a budget and gas costs money. So going from one place to another costs money too. Not sure why everyone blames Josh Wurman for everything that went wrong... VORTEX was a team and they did make mistakes like any chaser does. Additionally, SPC makes mistakes too, but that's part of life. I'm not a big Wurman fan, but I don't get on his case for missing the South Dakota outbreak. That was a human error, not an act of arrognace.

 

[Dan Dawson]

The point is, you have Dan, Patrick, Jeff, and others from V2 on here basically doing damage control for the comments made by Wurman, who of course isn't present on this thread.

He makes the waves and the others are left to sift through the rubble when the "little chasers" come back with strong opinions.

I tend to agree with the "limitations" theory; there is only so much we're going to glean from research. I don't believe we're even meant to understand TG or how/why it happens. The only thing I think we can say with confidence is that there is more than one way it happens. Beyond that, IMO, it's nothing but a chasm of endless dollars and field projects that will produce little results that take decades to find if even then.

The sad reality is, we keep trying because a crapload of people would be out of a job otherwise. I sure wish all professional fields worked that way.

BTW, I blogged this morning about Wurman and the plight of his research if anyone's interested: http://www.shaneadams.blogspot.com

Or maybe it's because we don't like being lumped in the same category as Josh Wurman (would you?), and are defending ourselves and the project as a whole. I'm not trying to do damage control for anything he said, I'm just trying to put the whole project into better perspective for folks on here who may have some misconceptions about what was actually going on day-by-day on the project.

I merely gave a reason for my motivation for joining the project (and for what it's worth, I was working with NSSL, not Wurman's group), and beyond that, making a career out of studying tornadoes and severe storms. I love what I do, I'm passionate about what I do, and I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't think I was advancing the science and eventually helping people out because of it. You and some others on here are coming close to suggesting that I and many others involved with V2 or other storm research on here are wasting our time, despite the fact that the stormchasing you and I love so much wouldn't have made the advances it has if it weren't for the research in the past. If I have misunderstood you on this point, I apologize. My point here is that we *all* benefit from the research, whether we are involved or not.

Yes it's slow: I said as much in my previous post, but it is still worth it, in my opinion. Again, in my opinion, we are on the verge of finding some exciting new things out about tornadogenesis in the next decade or so. Will we definitively solve the problem? I highly doubt it, but we will make some significant headway. By the way, I agree with you that there are likely multiple ways TG happens, but it is important to determine what those are so we can anticipate them ahead of time. We are likely not going to be able to increase the average lead time of warnings that much more, but what we can do is decrease the false alarm rate, which is at a whopping 80% right now. There is still tons of room for improvement.

By the way, I also tend to agree with you when it comes to accepting money from the Discovery Channel for research, etc. Stuff comes back to bite you, and I think he's feeling the sting of it now. On the other hand, Josh wasn't funded from Discovery this year, but from the NSF, just like every other team on V2. That's yours and my tax dollars. Josh has his flaws, but he does a darn good job of coordinating the radars on the field and he worked his tail off the last 2 years doing so. And before anyone gets all bent out of shape about some alleged waste of tax dollars, the amount we used was an absolute drop in the ocean compared to the NSF budget, and we had to scrape for that much.

Finally--and this is directed at some others, not Shane, that mentioned this--regarding the Bowdie, SD storm, it was a series of logistical decisions that led to us calling that day down. In retrospect, it was indeed a bad call, but hindsight is 20/20. The fact that we had driven 600+ miles the day before, the field coordination vehicle broke down on I-80 which meant that many of us didn't get back to the hotel until very late because we had to go back and get the occupants, and the fact that the threat area shifted north into northern SD rather than southern SD were all factors. I remember that, in the morning meeting that day, people were as exhausted (myself included) as I had ever seen them the whole project. What I'm saying is, there's always more to the story, and it's dismaying how people here who already have their minds made up about V2 (again, colored by one man's comments), love to use that day to twist the knife even more.

Bottom line is, V2 made mistakes (that day was one of them), like any and every other chaser on here has made mistakes. We didn't get all the data we were hoping for, but we got a lot of good stuff anyway. It definitely was worth it; it definitely wasn't in vain.

 

[Robert Edmonds]

As a researcher myself I can understand the frustations of attempting to get the data desired for a project. The only thing I dislike is the suggestion that I produce unsafe conditions for them by myself being out there. Especially when there were instances where V2 vehicles blocking roads and half parked on a lane.

 

[Mikey Gribble]

I made a comment about missing the south dakota EF4 storm, but I emphasized I was joking about it before saying that, so I hope its taken as a joke.
The only reason I even mentioned V2 missing that tornado machine in South Dakota, which was probably the best storm of V2's season, is because Wurman cited chasers as preventing them from conducting their research. For whatever reason V2 didn't chase that day, but when you compare being impeded on a crappy HP supercell in Oklahoma to missing out on a tornado machine that produced an EF4 there is no comparison. Missing that storm in South Dakota was a hundred times more damaging to the "science" than any chaser convergence ever was.
All chasers bust and make bad decisions. Its inevitable. I just don't think he has any business trying to blame chasers for shortcomings with his research when the costliest mistakes this season were their own.
Again I don't know Wurman and I'm not trying to put the guy down or lump any of the V2 people in the same boat as him. Somebody in his position should handle themselves with more class and tact though.

 

[Patrick Marsh]

Patrick, among the many things you likely already have on your table, as coordinator for V2, perhaps share what we CAN do, and start the conversation toward more coordination and making the vast resource on both sides helpful and productive.

I do want to stress that I was not the coordinator. I was just privy to the discussions every day. I also was able to contribute very small things, but for the most part the decisions and everything were made entirely by people in the field.

With that said, I did want to let you know that I did see this, Jason. I am preparing to head to Boulder, CO tomorrow for a workshop and have a million other things going on. However, I am/will be thinking about this and hope to be able to post an appropriate response today or tomorrow.