Twisters: the real-life science behind storm chasers

Racing towards a potentially deadly storm may sound like an absurd thing to do – but for some scientific researchers, chasing extreme weather can be enlightening as well as exhilarating. 

Storm chasers and their pursuit of tornadoes caught the public's imagination in 1996, with the release of Hollywood blockbuster "Twister". Its sequel, the imaginatively named "Twisters", opens for general release this week, and its creators' are hoping to enthral a new generation of extreme weather watchers. 

Unravelling a meteorological mystery

Scientists know a lot more about how tornadoes form and work today than they did for much of the 20th century, said BBC Earth. But why some thunderstorms create "violent" twisters and others don't "largely remains a meteorological mystery". Researchers who chase down storms do so in an effort to make sense of "tornadogenesis", the process by which tornadoes form.

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It comes with a number of challenges. Chasers have a "very narrow window to gather their data". They often only have 15 minutes to get into position and get their radars and monitoring equipment set up, and then "the actual formation of a tornado often happens on a time scale of just a few seconds", researcher Robin Tanamachi told the news site. "There's a low probability of success" for an endeavour that is "very costly, both monetarily and time-wise". 

Other storms are easier to monitor. "Hurricanes don't take us by surprise", for example, Dave Call, professor in geography at Ball State University, told Vox.They can occur over a "relatively long period of time" and can be tracked by "giant satellites". By comparison the brevity of tornadoes means gleaning useful information is immensely difficult; "the devil is in the details". 

Challenges and thrills

Seeing a tornado is "a big rush", said Call, who has chased 19 storms, clocking up a mileage of 130,000 in the process. "It's exciting and amazing. But I always have to tamp down expectations because if you go out there only to see tornadoes, you're going to end up very disappointed". Chasers are "at the mercy of the bigger weather pattern". 

It can be highly risky, too. Driving is treacherous and, with visibility sometimes "near zero", chasers can lose their orientation in the storm. Call, who takes students on chasing trips, says they never do so at night, near cities or wooded areas, on motorways, and never alone. And chasers must be sure to "always have at least one escape route", he said. 

Scientists have to take "calculated risks" when following tornadoes, said Penn State meteorology professors Yvette Richardson and Paul Markowski on The Conversation: researchers need "enough to collect crucial data" while "never putting their teams in danger".

After a storm, "eureka moments" would be nice, but results take time, the pair added. It can take "years" to analyse the information captured during an extreme weather event. The data from the various different pieces of equipment is combined to give a "complete picture of the storm and how it evolved". It's a lengthy process that "takes time and patience". But "the discoveries are often as exciting as the tornado itself".

A cinematic twist   

Lee Isaac Chung's film, starring Glen Powell and "Normal People" actor Daisy Edgar-Jones takes "some dramatic licence", said science journalist Alexandra Witze at Nature. But the film is "much more accurate" than its predecessor. 

It puts great emphasis on the technological developments that have made chasing a storm much easier today than it was in the 1990s. Back then, other than some satellite information, "it was basically all visual storm chasing", said Call. Nowadays, for the price of a low-cost app, would-be chasers can readily access radar information, and GPS technology has been a game changer, he said. 

Things are a little more high tech in "Twisters". The film "shows off" the kinds of "jaw-dropping observations" that the US's National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) has recorded through the use of phased array radar and "sophisticated" weather satellites in recent years, said Nature's Witze. NSSL meteorologist Sean Waugh, who worked as a consultant on the film, even "hand-picked data from famous real-life tornadoes to illustrate similar twisters on the big screen". 

The film, he said, has provided "an incredible opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists".