Remembering the TWISTEX Team: Safety and Contributions

Paul and Tim Samaras.
Photo provided by: www.thedenverchannel.com

The EF3 El Reno tornado has brought with it a lot of negative publicity to the storm chasing community. It has always been said that someone was going to be killed doing this, but no one would have ever in a million years thought it would have been Tim and his team. That would be simply impossible! Talk to anyone who knew Tim, they'd tell you he was the safest storm chaser around. Therefore trying to understand how this happened to him and his team is very hard to swallow.  He followed many safety precautions and always had the right to turn down any chase, which he did do. If a storm was too strong, too rain wrapped, if he didn't feel right about it, Tim wouldn't chase it. He never put anyone on his team in danger especially his son Paul who, like his father, took interest in storms at a young age and began riding along with the TWISTEX team when he was a teenager.

Tim's safety when chasing storms is just one of the attributes that made him such a respectable scientist in the community. He cared deeply for his fellow chasers and many went to him for advice. He would always give his honest opinion, no holding back. If you were afraid of the truth, you didn't go to Tim. This is yet another one of his attributes that made him so respected. He always gave the honest truth whether you wanted to hear it or not. From what I understand, when Tim spoke it was in your best interest to listen. And mostly everybody did.

Tim and one of his famous turtle probes.
Photo provided by: fox41blogs

Other than his safety standards Tim had contributed so much to the meteorology field. He was a storm chasing pioneer. What's even more incredible is that he is self taught. Everything Tim knows about our crazy atmosphere and the shenanigans that it can pull he learned by himself and by observing it. His research has made such strides in our community. It's a well known fact that the research that was done by Tim's TWISTEX team directly impacted and advanced warning times for tornados and severe weather. Turtle probes, which he designed himself, are now history making instruments. To this day, the information that his team has recorded from inside tornadoes has been unmatched. No other storm chaser has come remotely close to supplying atmospheric scientists with information from inside these violet storms, quite like Tim has. 

Tim deploying a "Turtle Probe".
Photo by: Cartsten Peter

On June 24th 2003 Tim and his turtle probes made recording-breaking history. One of his probes was able to take a direct hit from and EF4 tornado in Manchester, South Dakota. After all was said and done and Tim recovered his probe, which he was surprised to see sitting in the exact location he deployed it, the data that was retrieved was astonishing. This particular probe measured a pressure drop of 100 millibars at the tornado's center. This is the biggest pressure drop ever recored inside a tornado's center and the record still stands today. 

Since Tim's death the TWISTEX project has come to a halt. Tim held the team together and was the person responsible for geting the funding for the project, as many articles has previously stated. A new National Geographic article that was published yesterday stated the following from Mike Nelson, a Denver-based meteorologist, "We've lost the genius of Tim. I'm hoping that someone he inspired will step in. It hasn't happened yet." 

With all of the above being said, I hope this instills a new curiosity in you about Tim and his team. Go, look up articles and videos, do a little bit of research! Please, learn more about this man and his team and all the wonderful things they had done for the meteorological community. I'll even start you off with two links to read, both are National Geographic articles. One from last year when this awful tragedy first struck and the other more recently posted to honor Tim a year later. Read them both and see how wonderful this man and his contributions were. If I can teach just one person about the passion and love these men had for weather, I will have done my job. Below are the links, enjoy the read and feel Tim's essence all around you.

The Last Chase
Storm Chaser Tim Samaras: One Year After His Death, His Gift Is Unmatched