Armour Tornado
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US $160.00
Calling All UK Storm Chasers!
Since a young age, I have been somewhat passionate about storms. I recall being fascinated with thunder and lightning, but at the same time - completely frightened of it (thanks to one of my primary school teachers showing the class videos of lightning balls attacking people)! Still, given the chance, I would be ogling it from my front porch. However, as I grew a little older I discovered something that took my interest to a whole new level...
I remember how it all started: around the age of 11 years old I happened to catch a tornado documentary on TV one Saturday afternoon (after the kids' shows concluded). After that moment I devoured every TV documentary and library book about tornadoes, storm chasing and meteorology I could get my little hands on. I would ask friends with cable or Sky to record documentaries for me (we only had terrestrial TV at the time). In the UK pre-1995, it was highly unusual for the average household to own a PC, let alone an internet connection (or YouTube)! There was no tornadovideos.net around in those days, more's the pity! I couldn't get my hands on enough information or footage, which frustrated me greatly.
I would watch my Discovery Channel documentaries repeatedly, until the VHS picture would jump and distort. I was completely in awe of the men (and occasionally, women) that would travel hundreds of miles across America's vast Midwest plains to catch a glimpse of the majestic twisting vortexes, descending from giant supercells that resembled humungous UFOs. I came to learn about updrafts, dew points, dry lines, mezzo-cyclones, inflows, converging cells, baseball size hail, the Fujita scale and much more. While other children my age had posters of Blue and Take That bluetacted to their walls, I had photos of storms and my meteorological storm chasing heroes like Charles Edwards, Charles Doswell, Roger Edwards, Jeff Piotrowski, Tim Samaras, David O. Stillings and Tim Vasquez. Quite unusual for an English child from the 'Garden of England', let alone the fact that I am, in fact, a girl.
Since those days of childhood the internet has exploded. No more hellish screeching noises from the dial-up modem or pay per minute costs! The internet is rife with tornado videos and information. I started to participate in storm chasing forums, sometimes conversing with the very people I looked up to!
Just as the internet has come on in leaps and bounds in only a few years, so has the technology involved in chasing storms. The documentaries I watch today follow chasers whose vehicles are equipped with laptops, internet, satellite, radio, mobile phones and all sorts of gizmos, not to mention fully armoured cars that resemble tanks with the intention of driving into a tornadoes!
Now more than ever, I long to go visit the American Midwest and behold some of its remarkable weather. Not by myself, you understand, but with a storm chasing tour like Cloud 9 (founded by Charles Edwards) or Silverlining Tours. But to this day, now 26 years old I haven't yet managed to scrape enough money together, times being as they are.
My only consolation is, every spring, the anticipation of tornado outbreaks, footage and news coming from the US. Of course, it is extremely tragic to hear of casualties from these beast storms. Which is why I admire people like Josh Wurman, a renowned atmospheric scientist and creator of the Doppler On Wheels, which observes tornadoes and other weather phenomena from close range, hopefully collecting enough data that will one day help to predict tornadoes more accurately.
Are you also a frustrated UK storm enthusiast? Then I feel your pain.
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About the Author
Dorothy Thropp currently works for a major UK department store. In her spare time, she pursues her interest in meteorology and weather patterns. Her hectic lifestyle combined with her interest in all things weather-related has resulted in some of her friends referring to her as "Hurricane Dorothy". Some of her friends are not very creative.
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