Capturing video footage of 250 tornadoes and a couple dozen hurricanes in his career, Dr. Reed Timmer, who stars in the American documentary reality television series, “Storm Chasers,” spoke of his experience with tornados on Feb. 25 in the Fireside room at Bakersfield College.
There were many students and faculty who went to the presentation to learn more about the destructive weather conditions that occur around the world. Cristina Castaneda, 21, liberal studies major, said “I find his job interesting and unique and want to learn about it. Not many can do his job and chase tornados.”
BC geography professor John Menzies, said, “It’s important to know about weather because it affects us every day, and I would love to do Timmer’s job and chase storms, but teaching is my number one passion.”
Timmer has had “hands-on experience with a vast assortment of hazardous weather and natural disasters, as well as his extensive education in the science of meteorology, which have made him one of the world’s most respected experts on severe weather forecasting, safety and survival,” stated a flier.
Timmer was scared of storms and lighting like many kids at a young age. “When I was really young, like 3 or 4 years old, I was definitely scared of storms. I remember the lightning would strike and I would run into my mom’s room in fear and go under the covers,” said Timmer.
But that fear of storms soon became an intense passion. “I’d watch the weather channel 12 hours a day, and I became obsessed to the point of when I got my drivers license I would drive around trying to chase storms. I didn’t know what I was doing, which was a big mistake, because I could have gotten myself in some trouble, but I’ve been addicted to storm chasing ever since,” said Timmer.
In his presentation, Timmer showed video footage of some of the storms he and his team have been chasing. There were videos of F-5 tornadoes, of which Timmer hopes to take more footage. According to the Fujita Scale of Tornados resource, “an F-5 is an incredible tornado, with speeds that range from 261-318 mph. Its damages include: strong frame houses lifted off foundations and carried considerable distances to disintegrate; trees debarked; steel reinforced concrete structures badly damaged, etc.”
Timmer has been a storm chaser since Oct. 4, 1998 when he saw his first tornado while driving around. “When I started studying meteorology in Oklahoma, I was surrounded by weather enthusiasts who shared the same passion as me and I found people who wanted to chase storms like me,” he said.
Timmer and his team’s goal is to measure wind speed of tornados up close in high definition.
“Technology has really helped us catch more tornados on footage and it’s safer,” he said. “We have laptops now that follow tornados, radars, ways of knowing its rotation and location, a TVN RC plane, which helps us drop parachutes inside the tornado, and the most important new technology is our storm research vehicle, an SRV, also known as the Dominator.”
This vehicle is bulletproof armored, with hydraulics, and has safety NASCAR style seatbelts, along with other useful characteristics.
One of his most dangerous tornado capturing was in 2009 in Aurora, Nebraska. The tornado intensified right on top of the SRV Dominator, and the window was blown out as an intense mini suction vortex passed over the vehicle. The bulletproof window was stuck and Timmer could not get it up. A 138.8 mph wind gust was measured by the roof anemometer as the window blew out. Timmer had cuts on his face but said it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.
“We still drive into tornados and it gets risky but we do have our armor on our vehicle and maybe we’ll make our bulletproof windows electronically now so that no more exploding windows happen,” said Timmer.
Toward the end of the presentation, Timmer showed pictures and a video of softball-size hail that falls in parts of the United States while driving to capture a tornado.
Timmer stated it was important for people to know about tornados because “it affects the lives of many people who live in the central-eastern United States, negatively.”
Timmer also said that “when people become aware of the power of a tornado, they respect them more, and so when a tornado warning is issued in their community, they will be more willing to get underground in their basement, because that is truly the safest place to be at when a tornado happens.”