UM professor chases
tornados in Midwest

By Alan L. Samry
Staff Writer

Courtesy of The Fairhope Courier. Reprinted with permission.

At this time of year, people along the Gulf Coast begin to think about the looming hurricane season, but Steve Carey, a University of Mobile professor, spent last week in a van traveling over 3,000 miles chasing tornadoes.

From May 6th to the 13th, Carey joined Storm Chasing Adventure Tours, based in Oklahoma City, Okla. and chronicled his trip through the Midwest and his two tornado-sighting experiences on a Web log or blog at, www.umobile.edu/stormchaser.

A science teacher at the university for 25 years, Carey spent the week traveling hundreds of miles each day with professional storm-chasers and researchers in what is known in the springtime as “Tornado Alley,” an area of the US plains, including Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

According to the National Weather Service, a tornado is “a violently rotating column of air, pendant from a cumuliform cloud or underneath a cumuliform cloud, and often (but not always) visible as a funnel cloud.”

Annually, about 1,000 tornadoes are recorded in the United States, according to the National Weather Service.

In an interview about his trip earlier this week, Carey said this was his second storm-chasing tour. During his first tour, which was a Christmas gift from his wife back in 2002, the longtime Fairhope resident did not see any tornadoes.

This storm-chasing adventure was led by Todd Thorn and Peter Wharton. Carey was joined on the tour with two retired couples and a 25-year-old nurse from Calif. who said her storm-chasing motivation came from The Wizard of Oz.

“What everyone in the van had in common was a fascination with severe weather since childhood,” he said. “I grew up in West Virginia and we didn’t have tornadoes, but I used to watch the thunderstorms roll in.”

“A weather station on wheels,” is how Carey describes the van they traveled in. It’s equipped with a continual tracking weather radar system, laptop computers, cell and satellite phones. The group followed scientist Dr. Josh Wurman of the Center for Severe Weather Research and his Doppler on Wheels research team.

The challenge to storm-chasing, experts say, is positioning yourself where a tornado might form and be in the best (and safest) position to see it.

Storm-chasing often draws references to the hit movie “Twister,” which Carey says, “contains lots of misinformation about tornadoes.”

“The movie captures the essence of the chase, though,” he said.

In an example of the chase, he talks about their tour stopping at a convenience store in Brookhaven, Miss. for gas, bathroom breaks and snacks.

“I happened to be watching the radar and I ran into the store shouting, “We gotta go. We have a tornado!” Everyone dropped their stuff and we piled into the van to chase it down,” Carey said, but the group was not successful in that pursuit.

In another close call On May 8, Carey said, “the hunters became the hunted,” after they stopped for supper around 10 p.m at an Applebee’s in Dodge City, Kan.

Someone in the group noticed almost continuous lightning with golf ball-sized hail and a possible tornado on the radar.

“I was coming right at us. We left half-finished meals, desserts and beverages and headed to the chase van and drove to safety,” he said.

Two Tornadoes in One Day

“After 50 years of waiting to see one, it was like chasing a ghost, but to finally see it was awe-inspiring,” Carey said earlier this week about seeing his first tornado on May 9, in southwest Oklahoma.

“The tornado formed in farm and pasture land,” he said, and estimated they were about a mile away from it.

“This storm happened to be first of the season in Oklahoma, and it was on my 13th day of storm-chasing,” Carey said.

The storm only lasted about three-minutes, but it registered between an F0 and F1 on the Fujita Tornado Scale with wind speeds between 40 and 112 miles per hour.

More memorable than the pictures and videos of the storm, Carey said, was the image of a family he saw outside their brick home as they headed toward the storm.

“We were traveling down this back road to get to the storm and there was a family standing in front of their storm shelter. The father was looking up, watching the sky and his wife and kids were gathered around him, just waiting for the word to get inside.”

“We weren’t close enough to hear it,” Carey said, when asked about the sound of the tornado. According to the Storm Prediction Center, the most common tornado sound is a continuous rumble, like a nearby train. Storms can also produce a loud whooshing sound, like that of a waterfall or of open car windows while driving very fast.

“If you can hear it, you’re too close and you’ve made a serious mistake,” Carey said, adding that keeping a safe distance from tornadoes also keeps you out of the debris field.

The group was able to see a tornado’s full life cycle, but later that night around 10:30, they saw very little of what would be the season’s first deadly tornado.

“We were in the van heading back to our hotel, and I was looking out my window when a flash of lightning revealed a tornado. I couldn’t believe it at first, but the radar confirmed that we were witnessing an F3,” Carey said.

The tornado, with winds between 158 and 206 mph, struck Winchester, Texas and killed 10 people.

“A killer tornado leaves an impression and brings a new set of emotions,” he said, pausing several times to find the words to describe mother nature’s fury. “Earlier in the day I thanked God for the experience of seeing my first tornado, but by day’s end I was praying for the victims and their families.”

While off the beaten path

Although they continued to chase storms and saw several severe storms over the next few days, slow-weather days gave the group time to enjoy the Midwest and visit some historical sites.

The group visited the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site near Cheyenne, Okla. and the Shattuck (Okla.) Windmill Museum where 46 antique windmills are on display.

In addition, the group went to the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla., the “Holy Ground” according to Carey for storm chasers and those interested in severe weather. A branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the NSSL is dedicated to the study of severe storm formation and improving forecasts and severe weather warnings.

“Seeing a tornado is part forecasting and part luck, but if you are uncomfortable spending long hours in a car, then storm-chasing is probably not for you.” Carey said.

According to his blog, the group traveled 3,124 miles through six states chasing storms. They logged 72 hours or three full days driving in the van.

He enjoys storm-chasing and the science of it all so much that for next year, he’s already accepted an offer to be a chase van driver with Storm Chasing Adventure Tours.