El Reno is a city in and county seat of Canadian County, Oklahoma, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city population was 16,989, marking a change of 1.55% from 16,729, recorded in the 2010 census. The city was begun shortly after the 1889 land rush and named for the nearby Fort Reno. It is located in Central Oklahoma, about 25 miles (40 km) west of downtown Oklahoma City.
Storm chasing is broadly defined as the deliberate pursuit of any severe weather phenomenon, regardless of motive, but most commonly for curiosity, adventure, scientific investigation, or for news or media coverage. A person who chases storms is known as a storm chaser or simply a chaser.
This article lists various tornado records. The most "extreme" tornado in recorded history was the Tri-State tornado, which spread through parts of Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925. It is considered an F5 on the Fujita Scale, even though tornadoes were not ranked on any scale at the time. It holds records for longest path length at 219 miles (352 km), longest duration at about 3+1⁄2 hours, and it held the fastest forward speed for a significant tornado at 73 mph (117 km/h) anywhere on Earth until 2021. In addition, it is the deadliest single tornado in United States history with 695 fatalities. It was also the third most costly tornado in history at the time, but has been surpassed by several others when non-normalized. When costs are normalized for wealth and inflation, it still ranks third today.
Michael Bettes is an American television meteorologist and storm chaser who works for The Weather Channel in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a co-host of AMHQ: America's Morning Headquarters. He hosts Weather Underground TV. Bettes has been an on-camera meteorologist for TWC since 2003, and is also an occasional fill-in weather anchor on The Today Show.
The Tornado Intercept Vehicle 1 and Tornado Intercept Vehicle 2 are vehicles used to film with an IMAX camera from very close to or within a tornado. They were designed by film director Sean Casey. Both TIVs have "intercepted" numerous tornadoes, including the June 12, 2005, Jayton, Texas tornado, the June 5, 2009, Goshen County, Wyoming tornado, and the strongest intercept, made by TIV 2, the May 27, 2013, Lebanon, Kansas tornado.
Tornado Glory is an American documentary film that was released in 2006 by PBS. Produced by Angry Sky Entertainment, the program follows storm chasers Reed Timmer and Joel Taylor through Tornado Alley during the 2003 storm season. The film was produced and directed by Ken Cole.
Storm Chasers is an American documentary reality television series that premiered on October 17, 2007, on the Discovery Channel. Produced by Original Media, the program follows several teams of storm chasers as they attempt to intercept tornadoes in Tornado Alley in the United States. The show was canceled at the end of its 5th season by Discovery Communications on January 21, 2012.
Tony Laubach is an American storm chaser and meteorologist. He has participated in several field research projects and is one of the surviving members of TWISTEX. He has been contracted as a severe weather photojournalist for various major television networks, and has starred in several television shows, including Seasons 3 through 5 of Storm Chasers on the Discovery Channel.
TWISTEX was a tornado research experiment that was founded and led by Tim Samaras of Bennett, Colorado, US, that ended in the deaths of three researchers in the 2013 El Reno tornado. The experiment announced in 2015 that there were some plans for future operations, but no additional information has been announced since.
Dr. Reed Timmer is an American meteorologist and storm chaser. He is known for starring in the Discovery Channel reality television series Storm Chasers, as well as in the documentary film Tornado Glory and in the series Tornado Chasers. He also worked with Mike Theiss in the reality television series Storms Rising on Disney+.
David Payne is an American television meteorologist and storm chaser. He currently serves as the chief meteorologist for CBS affiliate KWTV-DT in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Sean Cameron Casey is an American IMAX filmmaker and storm chaser who appeared in the Discovery Channel reality television series Storm Chasers. Casey created an IMAX film called Tornado Alley about chasing tornadoes and had to build the Tornado Intercept Vehicle (TIV) and the Tornado Intercept Vehicle 2 (TIV2) to film inside a tornado. Tornado Alley was released worldwide on March 18, 2011. Casey has been named one of the 50 best minds of 2008 by Discover Magazine.
Storm Riders is a reality television series following two meteorologists as they travel across the Great Plains and East Coast of the United States in search of thunderstorms, tornadoes, and other severe weather. Storm Riders was aired on The Weather Channel, and it was included on the channel's Tornado Week programming.
A prolonged and widespread tornado outbreak sequence affected a large portion of the United States in late-May 2013 and early-June 2013. The outbreak was the result of a slow-moving but powerful storm system that produced several strong tornadoes across the Great Plains states, especially in Kansas and Oklahoma. Other strong tornadoes caused severe damage in Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, and Michigan. The outbreak extended as far east as Upstate New York. 27 fatalities were reported in total, with nine resulting from tornadoes.
Timothy Michael Samaras was an American engineer and storm chaser best known for his field research on tornadoes and time on the Discovery Channel show Storm Chasers. He died in the 2013 El Reno tornado.
During the early evening of Friday, May 31, 2013, an extremely large and powerful tornado occurred over rural areas of Central Oklahoma. This rain-wrapped, multiple-vortex tornado was the widest tornado ever recorded and was part of a larger weather system that produced dozens of tornadoes over the preceding days. The tornado initially touched down at 6:03 p.m. Central Daylight Time (2303 UTC) about 8.3 miles (13.4 km) west-southwest of El Reno, rapidly growing in size and becoming more violent as it tracked through central portions of Canadian County. Remaining over mostly open terrain, the tornado did not impact many structures; however, measurements from mobile weather radars revealed extreme winds up to 135.0 m/s within the vortex. These are among the highest observed wind speeds on Earth, just slightly lower than the wind speeds of the 1999 Bridge Creek–Moore tornado. As it crossed U.S. 81, it had grown to a record-breaking width of 2.6 miles (4.2 km), beating the previous width record set in 2004. Turning northeastward, the tornado soon weakened. Upon crossing Interstate 40, the tornado dissipated around 6:43 p.m. CDT (2343 UTC), after tracking for 16.2 miles (26.1 km), it avoided affecting the more densely populated areas near and within the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.
Tornado Chasers is an American documentary series that premiered on September 19, 2012, on TVNweather.com. The program follows Reed Timmer and his team of storm chasers as they attempt to intercept tornadoes in Tornado Alley in the United States and Canada. Season 2, funded largely through a successful Kickstarter campaign, commenced on September 30, 2013. The series is a two-time Webby Award Honoree, once for Best Documentary Series in 2013, and again for Best Editing in 2014.
James M. Leonard, also known as "Cyclone Jim", was an American professional storm chaser, photographer, and videographer. Intercepting severe weather including thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes and typhoons, he was among the earliest storm chasers. He was the first to photograph an anticyclonic tornado.
