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Tornado Scientists Butt Heads With Storm Chasers
An anonymous reader writes "Tornado researchers say amateurs — inspired by movies like Twister and shows like Storm Chasers — are getting in their way, hampering science and creating hazards. 'Hundreds of camera-toting amateurs in cars ended up chasing the same storms as a fleet of scientific vehicles during the high-profile research project, called Vortex2, which wrapped up data collection this week. At times the line of traffic caused the Midwestern roads to look like the freeways of Los Angeles, said Roger Wakimoto, director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, during a briefing for reporters this week. "I worry about this as a safety hazard," Mr. Wakimoto said. "These people were blocking our escape routes because of the sheer number of cars."' Storm chasers say they have as much right to watch storms as Ph.D.s."
Hmm, sure ... as long as your stupidity doesn't get the Phd folk killed.
I'm amazed we haven't had a fail of epic proportions yet where a storm changes directions and sucks up a bunch of them.
Agreed, the scientists started somewhere, just because the "amateurs" aren't being compensated and don't have a million dollar chase vehicle doesn't mean they have any less right to follow the storms - fuck off.
Mind if I block all the fire exits in your building and disable the smoke detectors?
Who's building?
Since when did "Scientists" gain possession of the roads?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Even if it does get them killed, every last one of the bunch stuck in traffic went there knowing they could get blocked in by other people. Who says the PhD types couldn't contribute to some amateurs getting killed? There's a storm that can put a toothpick through an oak tree: everyone running towards it is responsible for their own consequences.
Bullshit, those storm chasers are not motivated by movies and shows like Twister and Storm Chasers. Everybody knows they are motivated by xkcd. See: http://xkcd.org/752/
I AM BUILDING, thank you very much.
As a chaser, emergency first responder, and media chaser... I can say that the problem is NOT the chasers but the "Chaser-chasers". The article references May 19th in Oklahoma where most commonly you could find local folks with their kids and dogs in the back of the family pickup truck taking pictures with their phones and point and shoots. Regardless of what the masses in Oklahoma think... just because you have an iPhone app with radar does NOT classify you as a "chaser"! On top of VORTEX2's caravan of 40+ vehicles, you have NBC/The Weather Channel following the VORTEX2 project that are not included with that count. You've also got the Discovery Channel's team of production vehicles coupled with the "Dominator" and TIV2, which both were captured passing miles worth of vehicles on a two lane highway in a no passing zone! Throw a few tour groups, emergency management, a couple media chasers in the mix... and you've got yourself a problem on the roadways. But those numbers nowhere add up to the amount of local yahoos who gathered up the family and put themselves in more harm than anything. This situation defiantly makes me think twice of chasing in Oklahoma again.
Yeah, but the chasers are just there to go "hyurp, issa terrnado!" while the scientists are there to learn about tornadoes and how they form so they can save thousands of lives.
Perhaps, in a painfully literal sense, but claiming that your desire to seek an adrenaline high is just as valid as their desire to do research that will save lives is high asshattery.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Silly rednecks, you would think they'd know that staying in their trailer park would grant them the best view.
but the "chaser-chaser" chasers. They put the "fun" back into "funnel".
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
They're pretty sure all that science stuff is an elitist, commie, atheist plot to steal their vital bodily fluids and turn them all gay.
Those people have the right to use the road, but that doesn't give them the right to recklessly block the road from being used by others, especially if that use is to escape from a life-threatening situation. At that point they become as much of a reckless driver as someone texting while driving or going excessively fast.
and kill two birds with one storm
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
I doubt that many of these folk will become scientists.
Why they have the right to be stupid let's be honest.
1. This is a dangerous activity.
2. They have caused issues with scientists trying to do proper data collection.
3. They could cause problems for first responders trying to help people.
So yes the have the right but is it ethical or even morally right to get in the way of real scientists?
I would say that most of these folk should get the heck off the rode and let the professionals have their crack at getting real data that might actually end up helping people.
Otherwise they are just using their right to be dumb jerks to hurt the advancement of science for in exchange for some thrill seeking.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The message missed by all:
FTFA - While people have no legal obligation to yield to radar trucks, he said that he felt the amateurs should have given way as a courtesy... it's just polite..
We do encourage that, don't we? Or is it fuck everybody?
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
I always flinch when I see images of roads clogged with folks chasing a tornadic storm either just for the thrill or for the purposes of filming it - doing so is a Bad Idea and sooner or later is going to get some people (possibly a LOT of people) needlessly killed.
Professional scientific researchers have training, equipment and experience. They are fully aware of the danger the storm presents, and are risking it to perform scientific studies for the purpose of increasing human knowledge about these systems. They know what they're doing, they have things like mobile doppler radar to help them keep track of the situation, and aren't out there for cheap thrills.
People, you need to respect these storms. Sure, they produce awesome video. Great. Watch the Discovery show or the latest PBS special - don't go charging into the middle of danger! Does watching snake handlers on television make you want to go hunt up a rattler and start juggling it??? These storms are DANGEROUS. People DIE in these things, and cars are not a safe place to be. Particularly in heavy traffic.
Scientific study of these storms is a legitimate activity, and is more legitimate (and deserves precedence over) thrill seekers and people looking to make a cool home movie. If it comes down to it, maybe we should license storm chasers and fine anyone else who tries it - send some police cars along with the scientific teams. Make their special status explicit under the law, if that's what it takes, because people seeking knowledge to help make better warning systems are surely more important than cheap thrills for people with no common sense or survival instincts.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Given that the amateurs are just there for kicks, they should know and accept that they are willingly putting themselves into a risky situation.
The PhDs also know that they are willingly putting themselves into a risky situation, but they are doing so to increase the sum of human knowledge, which makes it slightly more worthwhile.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
What this article fails to mention is one of the reasons Vortex2 even got a go was partially because of the success and semi-stardom Dr. Josh Wurman got from participating in "Storm Chasers".
The publicity that show generated for them no doubt helped lube the federal funding money chute.
Besides, you can't just declare martial law and saw "No one can storm chase". There's no solution that will ever be enacted that ends with making it illegal, so you may as well stop bitching about it and simply work with the other guys. I'm amazed there isn't a federal call center or something for these chasers to all phone in to, and a website with realtime dopplar radar provided to them. The faster these guys report a tornado on a ground, the easier it is for the weather people to push a button for a siren or some other event.
This just sounds like sour grapes. You could see the annoyance on the part of the "funded" scientist when that little no-name crew successfully flew a model airplane around a tornado and dropped sensors into it. The fact that was done on a budget put together by selling Tornado videos to news channels sounds like a win/win for me. Took none of my tax dollars, and reaped novel data.
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I stopped reading the article when I read "Dr. Wurman said that amateur storm chasers rarely offer useful information"
It always bothers me when people with PhD's discount the information provided by amateurs. More than 1/2 the PhD's I have worked with tend to have a belief that if you do not have a degree in the subject you can not possibly provide any useful research data or that there is no way you can know what you are talking about.
If they are worried about the numbers of amateur storm chasers maybe they should have a conference with them and train them in proper data collection and where to report it. Then the people they think are "getting in the way" could be helpful and add to the body of scientific knowledge.
But then they would have to admit that anyone can do science and not just the PhD's. We can't have that, we have to pack the class rooms so they can get paid.
Well, the PhDs have a little thing called KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK THEY'RE DOING.
But apparently not the consequences their ignorance and sense of entitlement force on others.
Shouldn't that be, "Tornado Scientists: Butt Heads With Storm Chasers"?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Are you sure? I have a PhD and sometimes, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm just making it up as I go along...
Lucky for society my PhD isn't related to my job.
It doesn't matter, the roads are public and this is America. Just because they have a PHD doesn't suddenly give them more rights than anyone else. As long as the police don't tell them to leave (and talking to cop friends after Twister came out they think BOTH the scientists and storm chasers are fucking nuts) then the scientists can just learn to deal or go somewhere else.
Welcome to America, where public is public and we ALL have the right to use the roads, even in times of emergency. And what if I am getting the fuck away from one, and a scientists blocks my way? They are creating just as much of a hazard as the storm chasers, and the little roads in places like OK and AR simply are gonna be crowded...period.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I'm amazed we haven't had a fail of epic proportions yet where a storm changes directions and sucks up a bunch of them.
Now that would be some good TV!
In Soviet Russia, storm chases you
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I'm amazed there isn't a federal call center or something for these chasers to all phone in to, and a website with realtime dopplar radar provided to them. The faster these guys report a tornado on a ground, the easier it is for the weather people to push a button for a siren or some other event.
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There is. SKYWARN is a program run by the NWS/NOAA, local law enforcement, and private citizens that lets anyone with some basic (really basic) meterological knowledge (what a wall cloud looks like, how to spot early rotation, etc) utilize an amateur radio to call in sightings of severe and tornadic weather using thier SKYWARN volunteer designator.
NWS will turn a tornado watch into a warning based solely on observer reports.
SKYWARN is a great program, IMO. BTW, most of those awesome tornado videos you see arent from scientists, they're from storm chasers and SKYWARN people.
This space for rent.
He didn't say that, you stuffed your own definition in there.
real scientist.
Someone who collects data and applies the scientific method to it.
Most of these amateur storm watchers don't do that. They get a camera and take photos. Hardly any of them will do any research.
Those people are in the way.
You have a right to stand around and gawk,, but when you get in the way you are being a dick.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But let's be honest.
The real storm chasers are probably not the problem. It the people that watched Stormchasers on TV and think it looks like fun.
Also so what if the scientists have jumped onto the bandwagon? Are they doing real science that helps people? Then it is a good thing.
And they are not claiming the roads or the storms. They are asking people to not get in their way or endanger them while they are collecting data.
Seems all too reasonable to me.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You do realize that most of those successful storm chasers you are talking about are scientists who chase as a "hobby"? Where I work, if there is a good chance for tornadoes in the state, good luck finding a professor or graduate student as many of them are out chasing for fun (and learning). Many discoveries on how tornadoes work happened during these "chase days" by scientists watching what they love (e.g. - Markowski and Bluestein are two names off the top of my head).
I rode with an organized storm chasing group for a couple of years. When I say organized, I mean there were meetings, committees, bylaws, a training program, certifications, schedules, and procedures. The group had its own commercial FM repeater, as well as being authorized to use a number of amateur radio repeaters, for communications. You didn't just show up and go storm chasing, you had to go through the training and orientation first.
Many times, members of the group called in weather reports that resulted in warnings being issued. It was a standing requirement that we attend yearly spotter training courses from the National Weather Service, and many members of the group did have an interest in the science behind the storms. Many people in the group had a genuine interest in doing something for the public good.
However, many *others* in the group were deeply caught up in the whole thing; they'd take any opportunity to criticize the forecasters at the local National Weather Service office, the weather guy on TV, and local emergency management officials. They'd never pass up a chance to be interviewed, especially on television. It was common at meetings to watch storm chasing video, often of people doing 95 down some two lane highway, shooting video while driving. People would talk in the same breath about how much the group was needed, respected, and adored by local government officials.
I eventually left the group, because the training and certifications and all that were meaningless. While there were some genuinely interested people in the group, the people who founded and ran the group really were in it for the adrenaline, and the glory, and the TV footage, and the science was only included as a means to get better video. No one from the group went to school to study atmospheric sciences, or even took classes.
If storm chasers are getting a bad reputation, it's because they've earned it. It may be just a few bad apples, but enough of the sorta good apples follow the bad ones down the highway.
You can be a storm spotter, trained or not, on your front porch. You're likely to do more good doing that, than wasting fuel and polluting the air driving 150 miles across Nebraska in the rain.
I think you'll find that if people do something all the time over a period of years, they'll end up 'KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK THEY'RE DOING' as a matter of course. It's called 'experience' and is not always related to how many books one reads.
I have nothing but respect for PhDs, but I doubt that much they learn in grad school prepares them any better for storm chasing than what an amateur can learn from doing it themselves. (And, get this, amateurs can read books too! I know, right? Who knew that you could read books outside of degree programs and still learn things!)
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
How much torque can you get from a state-of-the-art rank armature?
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
I have a tendency to agree. The "PhDs", including some participants in Vortex 2, are mostly people who have their either extreme video or tornado tourism businesses.
Sorry, folks, the roads belong to everyone, but ultimately the Highway Patrol "owns" the road, and yes, in places they are cracking down on crazed drivers, parking in the road, piles of gadgets obscuring the windows, etc.
Ultimately, I'd be more worried about some fly-by-night outfit rolling a van or driving head-on into someone either because the vehicles are poorly maintained or the driver is sleep-deprived.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Also,, Whats wrong with having more people about when big storms hit. I live in the UK and i know a few people who goto your country to chase storms. EVERY! time that catch a storm that has damaged areas they always stop to see if anyone requires help. Would these people prefer to be just left left for dead and only have a handful of weak science guys more worried about their kit than the lives of residents who have just had their lives shattered from a tornado? This is a pointlesss rant from a bunch of whiny so called scientists!
You make a salient larger point. There's a good deal of lack of respect for nature. Whether it be sailing around the world when you're 16, going to live with Grizzly's, or scaling the Himalayas; good old fashioned awe is at a long time low. Technology is the prime mover I guess in counting coup with a tornado. After the encounter you bring images and tales back to the BBQ and share them with your (now) world youtube tribe who anoints you with adulation and esteem. I've been close to a tornado whilst exposed in the eastern plains of Colorado. There is no record of me lying in a ditch soiling my pants and I'm glad of it. Ooops.
Except you're missing a pretty important point.
Sure, everyone's got a right to the road. Thing is these amateurs are getting in the way of people who are trying to study this shit so we can better understand and so better prepare and warn people of disaster.
In other words, the amateurs have their heads up their asses. Yeah, they have as much right as the PhDs to be there, but what they SHOULD do, were they decent people, is concede that people other than themselves are better able to do better work and that because of this they should allow them better access.
If someone's choking to death, only an asshole would stand in the way of trained paramedics and claim that they have just as much right to stand there as the paramedic. That's a thin analogy but still works -- get the hell out of the way of the professionals, they know what they're doing more than you do.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
The difference between 'experience' and 'training' is a syllabus. It may surprise you to learn that everything that can be considered a skill that people do now at one time had to be done by people who had nobody to learn from and 'didn't know what they were doing' simply because they were the first to do it. A human being with initiative can self-educate. As a species we should never denigrate that, as it has been the key to civilization itself.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
This isn't about rights. Why do people automatically assume criticism of a behavior means someone is trying to take away the right to do it?
This is about morons with beer hats getting in the way of professionals trying to do legitimate, life-saving research.
Are you sure? I have a PhD and sometimes, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm just making it up as I go along...
When you graduate from high school you know everything.
When you graduate from college you realize you don't actually know everything.
When you get a masters' degree you realize you don't know *anything*.
When you get a PhD you realize nobody else does, either.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Since when did "Scientists" gain possession of the roads?
No implication of possession was made, the scientists were simply saying it was rude and dangerous. Which, it sounds like it is to park across the highway in the middle of a tornado!
Not sure when the assumption on slashdot became "If you say something -should- be this way, you're trying to pass a law enforcing it."
As Einstein famously pointed out, "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"
From the news reports, it is clear that tornadoes actually swerve towards trailer parks... I'm still waiting for the scientists to explain this phenomenom.
When large numbers of beer bellies accumulate in a relatively small area, their sheer mass induces a gravitational anomaly that attracts inclement weather.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Morons with beer hats paved the way precisely because they were moronic enough to start chasing twisters long before the dudes in white coats figured it was a legitimate scientific endeavor worthy of their time and reputation.
See rocketry, flight etc. Not that the Wright brothers were "moronic". But the point I'm trying to make is that almost any field *becomes* a "science" only after someone with no knowledge explores it enough to establish some information that the science types can then study and then become scientists in the field.
So, in essence, curiosity and the sheer determination to explore something in the face of ridicule - something a proper modern "scientist" rarely would risk their reputation for - is something, most of the time, is better done by amateurs. Which becomes the foundation for the science that then follows. So, at least in my mind, the amateurs are discoverers of science. The "scientists" just study the science.
For the scientist to claim that they are the ones doing important work - f that. The most important work was done when someone decided to chase the storm just for the hell of it.
And wasn't curiosity an essential part of science?
If an amateur develops a safer way to get closer to the storm - is that development any less scientific?
And please don't forget, the scientists and the doctors - if "life-saving" is the only dimension of human endeavor - have all failed miserably: every single human being dies.
Even if it does get them killed, every last one of the bunch stuck in traffic went there knowing they could get blocked in by other people. Who says the PhD types couldn't contribute to some amateurs getting killed? There's a storm that can put a toothpick through an oak tree: everyone running towards it is responsible for their own consequences.
Well, clearly the PHD's just need to call "dibs" on the tornados, blocking the "amateurs" from chasing.
They should call "shotgun". And if the amateurs get in the way, they can always use that shotgun.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Why they have the right to be stupid let's be honest.
But do they have the right to be stupid?
No one thinks it unusual when roads are closed to all non-essential travel because of weather conditions or other hazards.
Better yet, equip all these yahoos with some basic monitoring equipment to record information for you. It wouldn't be the first time scientists have used a network of enthusiastic amateurs for a legitimate scientific endeavor.
If you can't beat them, turn them into your army.
~X~