Bart, the fact that the tornado was extreme is certainly the biggest factor, but I did not overlook the fact that this event (these storm chasers getting killed as well as three others luckily surviving a badly rolled over car). The tragic circumstances that caused the deaths of Tim and Paul Samaras and Carl Young has been well documented. Thankfully, I got out of it with just a few minor injuries and broken windows, but if a monster tornado happens people will not be as lucky as I was. Paul is right. Dallas' independent source of Big fires are also pretty unpredictable and they can drop burning embers many kilometres away from the fire centre. He knew where not to be and in this case the tornado took a clear turn toward them," he said. The complexity of the kind of law your advocating is also extremely hard to defend in court. One of the first rules you hear about what to do in a tornado is "Do not try to outrun it." Either prospect is equally remarkable. Regarding the rest of your comment. - Toxicology results have revealed the cause of death of a well-known storm chaser. The officers had to contend with hail and strong winds as they worked to help motorists. I don't know what Reed has ever done for science with his stuff. And if people are close enough to a tornado so that a car gets thrown at them, then that might just be natural selection as well. He earned his Master of Science degree in atmospheric science from the University of Nevada. >>> I support this 100%. Unauthorized use is prohibited. :) This is not about them, it is about their death, which at the time it happened, was claimed to have been caused by a traffic jam caused, in turn, by thrill seekers jamming the roads, and thrill seekers jamming the roads is a thing that happens. I'm reminded of Grand Island, NE in 1980, when the tornadoes defied everything we supposedly know about them. They were killed near El Reno in an EF3 tornado with winds up to 165 mph that ripped through the Oklahoma City area during rush hour. Im not sure how many people actually got in their cars and drove south. We do know, however, that the highways in the area became jammed with cars, and the vicinity around the intersection of I35 and I40 was described as a parking lot. One thing we do know is that many people who drove south to get away from the tornado in fact drove directly into its path, created a traffic jam, and most of the deaths associated with this tornado were among those people in those cars. Emergency officials reported that numerous injuries occurred in the area along I-40, and said the storm's victims were mostly in cars. As you come closer to a cloud you don't get something smooth, but irregularities at a smaller scale." He deployed one of these in the path of an F4 tornado that destroyed the small town of Manchester, S.D., on June 24, 2003. Oklahoma is a severe convective weather 'bulls-eye' and always will be. But I'll just say that I think there are less extreme solutions than putting a ban on all amateur storm chasing. When the NWS uses phrases such as "You will not survive, neighborhoods will be flattened" no one in their right mind is going to stay at home and wait out the tornado in their bathroom or closet above ground. Hopefully, that lesson will be learned immediately. The other, which according to professional storm chasers is a problem, is the increased number of people crowding roads (including but by no means limited to) highways in or near the paths of storms. In this country, if a cyclone alert is issued, all roads are closed. Though the state's transportation authorities strongly advised citizens not to drive, some interstate highways in Oklahoma were jammed with stalled traffic, as heavy rains drenched roadways and flooded low-lying areas. Don't create a law just to feel better because people died. But, since we (we here discussing this) don't really know the laws and how they work regarding emergency response, traffic, etc. Local news reported an estimated 1,200 people were at the airport. In Missouri, areas west of St. Louis received significant damage from an EF3 tornado Friday night that packed estimated winds of 150 mph. He was best known for being a Meteorologist. Of the 60 EF5 tornadoes to hit since 1950, Oklahoma and Alabama have been hit the most - seven times each. More than half of those were people who had been cut or pierced. This was one of the highways that really did have a traffic jam thanks to the TV people who encouraged locals to attempt to flee in their cars. Sher told ABC News: 'When the troopers found them, they were both deceased.'. In fact, it isn't just the mathematical curiosity known as the Mandelbrot set that's full of irregularities and ever, How three storm chasers died, and what to do about it, http://news.yahoo.com/tornado-coming-grab-helmet-084500057.html, http://www.youtube.com/user/TheTornadoChaser, http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/06/19/pilger_nebraska_torn, The Lab Leak Theory Was Dismissed As Trump Xenophobia - Now Deniers Say It Was Not Accepted Because of Trump Xenophobia, DAN5/P1: Homo Erectus Early Cranial Capacity Was More Like Australopiths Such As 'Lucy', DART Made A Big Difference In Ability To Accurately Calculate Asteroid Deflections, The Subsidies Paradox: Affordable Food Versus The Environment, Degrowth communism as asolution for climate change, On that chilling law suit against the environmental groups, Watch Jeff Merkley Wipe Floor With Trump's William Wehrum, "Transparency" should not equal a license to harass scientists. They were caught off guard not by traffic, but by an extremely powerful and erratic multi vortex tornado that grew from a mile wide multivortex into a 2.5 miles in diameter behemoth as it also accelerated and turned north toward the ill fated chasers. You can also shop using Amazon Smile and though you pay nothing more we get a tiny something. 528 people were killed by weather in 2012, of which about 200 were a result of high velocity air. When does spring start? Jim Cantore, a Weather Channel meteorologist, tweetedSundaythat meteorologists were in mourning. I dont think the scientists who died in this storm would agree with you on that. They were probably thinking, somebody should do something about this situation.". Stop having idiots chase things. The apparent fact that individuals don't take on the personal responsibility of doing the sensible thing is a tragedy. I am thinking these scientists were blaming the storm track far more than the traffic. Drivers were encouraged to stay off the roads on Saturday, as emergency crews started to repair the flood-damaged roads and bridges, and began clearing trees and other debris from roadways to make it easier for first responders to get to the areas hit by the tornadoes. The result, even in dry, acronym-heavy academic language, manages to serve as both an enlightening and horrifying account of storm chasing's worst day. Were 20 of those people storm chasers? Storm chasing by amateurs needs to be outlawed. In his writeup of this event, meteorologist Paul Douglas made this point: Every time I went down to Oklahoma [with storm chasers] I was struck by the number of people tagging along. Tim Samaras sits with instrument probes he used as part of his TWISTEX field research program. They are acting in the interests of public safety. They should not drive where they will not be able to pull over safely to allow emergency traffic and other traffic to flow. If you are worried about the roads being clogged during a tornado then don't drive or don't live in tornado alley. More than 200,000 were left without power in the impacted areas. It would have been a major problem. (Though I'm not so sure that restrictive law re tornadoes is the first or best strategy - simply ensuring that emergency personnel of all kinds have the authority to control traffic might be OK so long as they are adequately trained and backed up with good links to forecasters.) More than 100 people were injured by swirling debris, most with puncture wounds and lacerations, authorities said. Troopers requested a number of ambulances at I-40 near Yukon, west of Oklahoma City. I assume those are passed to make legislators feel good about their jobs. We need infrastructure built! #2. the storm went from a mile wide wedge to a 2.6 mile record breaking monster in an extremely rapid time, usually people 1 mile away from the storm would be safe or even 2 miles away but in this case it dropped on people 2 miles away, more so i don't believe it was a traffic jam as opposed to the rapid size increase and the sudden change in course. Thanks for contacting us. That's really all I have to say on that issue. Yes, chaser convergance has been a huge problem over the last few years. The authors are Joshua Wurman, Karen Kosiba and Paul Robinson with the Center for Severe Weather Research, and Timothy Marshall of Haag Engineering, a damage-path surveyor from Flower Mound whom I interviewed for our cover story on the tornado. Also, read the wikipedia on Tim Samaras for more details, and watch this YouTube video (embedded below as well). "They put themselves in harm's way so that they can educate the public about the destructive power of these storms," he said. If idiots who don't know what they're doing want to drive into a twister, let them. Along with his son, Paul, and storm chaser Carl Younghis longtime. 'I'm a seasoned tornado watcher but I just could not see staying and waiting for it to hit,' she said. Sheltering in place should always be recommended. One simple idea was to have either a hard hat or some sort of hard shell helmet to wear. It is probably true that Samaras abandoned attempts at dropping probes more often then strictly necessary, cautiously avoiding rain-wrapped tornadoes where they would not have been able to see where the tornado was, in order to be extra safe. Police believe the woman was driving an SUV near El Reno when the powerful twister flipped the vehicle over. When the storm passed between El Reno and Yukon, it barreled right down Interstate 40 for more than two miles, ripping billboards down to twisted metal frames. Yes, they died, but there is ZERO evidence this law, if passed, would have prevented even one of them. The National Weather Service said the severe weather threat would shift into neighboring Illinois and Missouri, where Governor Jay Nixon declared a state of emergency on Friday. And for several minutes you car is shoved around on the surface like you were a puck in a game of air hockey, with the car slamming into other cars and other cars slamming into you, and each car being turned over now and then. That is a real problem and has increased over time. Three experienced tornado chasers actual meteorological scientists were killed when their truck (one of the vehicles depicted above, probably) was destroyed by the tornado. The Last Ride of Legendary Storm Chaser Tim Samaras His graduation was at Alameda International High School in 1976. -Benoit Mandelbrot He was killed because an unusual and unprecedented tornado acted in an unpredictable manor and sadly cost him, his son, and chase partner their lives. The scene was eerily like that from last week, when blackened skies generated a top-of-the-scale EF5 storm with 210 mph winds. I will not comment at all in regardess to the death of Tim, Carl, or Paul, as they were close personal friends of mine and I am not reading to speak on that subject currently. A finite resource. The deaths of Mr. Samaras, his son, and Mr. Young had absolutely nothing to do with the horrendous traffic affecting other parts of Oklahoma on May 31. Also, there are nearly no public shelters anymore, due to liability issues. Thus the bigger the projectile you will make, the worse the fine. Brandi Vanalphen, 30, was among the hundreds of drivers trapped on traffic-snarled roads as she attempted to flee the tornado system menacing the suburb of Norman. I think one suggestion if such a law could ever be enforced to weed out the average thrill seeker is maybe require one, a first aid type certification. If they had tried to drive away their cars would have surely been torn apart, and again just last summer a tornado ripped through the forests close to home demolishing hill sides and houses in its path. We are part of Science 2.0,a science education nonprofit operating under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. This is nothing new, and this really has nothing to do with someone on television telling them to do so. >>> They were in a car, not a truck. So when an alert is issued the authorities only have a few roads to close, and not much population to evacuate. Further with this ridiculous drive away strategy and the inability to predict small movements how do you parse the storm chasers from the poorly directed refugees? Okay, fair enough. I think it's exactly as you said; these are bona fide emergencies and thus are precisely the situations that they should already be empowered to act in. Samaras holds the Guinness World Record for the largest measured pressure drop inside a tornado. Is it possible that Tim Samaras and his Twistex team were - Quora Then, when the car is done flipping, it gets flipped again. On Tuesday, Storm Chasers star Joel Taylor died at 38. Flash flooding accounted for some of the deaths, such as that of a 65-year-old man who died on Saturday when his car drove off a damaged bridge in eastern Oklahoma County. Were all the people blocking the road amateur chasers? In Missouri three people died in three counties after rivers rose to dangerous levels, and in Arkansas a sheriff was killed by flooding in Scott County on Friday. He set a world record in 2003 which still stands today when he recorded an 100 millibar pressure drop from an F-4 tornado. Another example of this on a NATIONAL level and not just a local level is Season 5 episode 6 of Storm Chasers (The discovery channel show that followed three chaser groups) where Joel Taylor, Reed Timmer, and Chris Chittick all call friends and family on their cellphones advising them to drive away from Yukon, OK and Norman, OK. Actually pointing those in Yukon into the path of the Pidemont, OK tornado. Was the chaser causing harm? The seasoned storm chaser had dedicated his life to extreme weather, following storms for a quarter of a century. OKLAHOMA CITY The deadly tornado that struck near Oklahoma City late last week killing 18, including three storm chasers, had a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles and was the second top-of-the-scale EF5 twister to hit the area in less than two weeks, the National Weather Service reported Tuesday. He knew what to look for. Standing water was several feet deep, and in some places it looked more like a hurricane had passed through than a tornado.

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