One of these days, I'm going to go chase tornadoes. Hopefully, it won't be a day like the one captured in this riveting video, where two bickering chasers get caught between a tornado and a hailstorm near South Plains, Texas on May 12. You'll have to forgive them for the language, because even Mother Teresa would've screeched off a few goddamns if softballs of ice started crashing through her windshield.
As long as we're on the subject, Salon is running a series of storm-chasing essays this week, including this excerpt from Mark Svenfold's new book, Big Weather. Svenfold also wrote a companion piece about chase culture where we get to meet the Twister Sisters, two (unrelated) chaser ladies who imbue their male-dominated field with a much-needed dash of ooh-la-la. Chicks that dig tornadoes - man, that's HOT!
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Dude, have you seen the "Forces of Nature" IMAX movie yet? Best tornado porn ever! Plus earthquakes and volcanoes!
I'm addicted to natural disasters almost as much as I am to man-made ones like plane crashes. The thing you fear the most is the biggest turn-on, I guess...
I definitely need to see "Forces of Nature!"
For me, the allure of seeing a tornado in person is symbolically "conquering" the childhood fear that made me interested in them to begin with.
I'm also seriously fascinated by plane crashes for the same reason.
Is it just tornadoes, or a more widespread weather geekdom? (I confess to the latter.) Signs include: having a favorite local weatherman, reading weather news online, leaving the radar channel on as background noise.
I probably shouldn't be confessing to any of this...
Well, Kat, who's your favorite weathercaster? I usually watch Mark Murray on KVUE during the week, but KXAN's Laura Skirde is a breath of sweet summer air on the weekends.
I'm a Jim Spencer fan (since I'm outing myself, I might as well go all the way).
And even though he's got some weird hair transplant or bad rug thing going on, I read former-TV-weather-guy Bob Rose's Weather Discussion on the LCRA website. (Luckily, it's just words. No hair video.)
Were you in a tornado as a kid, or did they simply freak you out? My dad was from North Texas, and I inherited his tornado paranoia, even though we were in SA.
Well, then there was visiting my grandparents and having to go into the storm cellar in the middle of the night. Creepy! And thrilling.
Big storms do indeed bring out the best in Jim Spencer. I'll have to check out the Bob Rose LCRA thing.
My tornado fixation comes from living in Dallas as a little kid. I never actually saw a tornado, but one time when I was six, the warning sirens went off when one hit nearby and I freaked out. I remember frantically stocking our closet with a Thermos of water and books (not quite realizing we wouldn't be in there for long and wouldn't have lights if the twister hit us).
Stocking up with books! That's excellent.
I'm still freaked when the sky turns that weird gray/green color... our most recent tornado story was in November 2001, when that freakish fall storm sent a twister up IH35, frightening the hell out of us here in Cherrywood. Our son was four days old, and I lay in the bathtub (safest room?) holding him, covered with a comforter, thinking: we just got you born! can we NOT die just now?
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