Twister is a 1996 American disaster film directed by Jan de Bont, and written by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin. It was produced by Crichton, Kathleen Kennedy, and Ian Bryce, with Steven Spielberg, Walter Parkes, Laurie MacDonald, and Gerald R. Molen serving as executive producers. The film stars an ensemble cast that includes Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton, Jami Gertz, and Cary Elwes. It follows a group of storm chasers trying to deploy a tornado research device during a severe outbreak in Oklahoma.
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.
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.
Reed Timmer is an American meteorologist and storm chaser. Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he took an interest in science, including weather, at a young age, before experiencing severe weather, including a hailstorm at age 13. After presenting weather forecasts at his high school, he began studying meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, completing his PhD in 2015.
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 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.
The 2013 El Reno tornado was an extremely large, powerful, and erratic tornado that occurred over rural areas of Central Oklahoma during the early evening of Friday, May 31, 2013. 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 in excess of 313 mph (504 km/h) 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.
Into the Storm is a 2014 American found footage disaster film directed by Steven Quale, written by John Swetnam, and starring Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh, Alycia Debnam-Carey, and Arlen Escarpeta. It is a meteorological disaster film about a rash of tornadoes striking the fictional town of Silverton, Oklahoma.
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.
Ryan Hall, known as Ryan Hall, Y’all, is an American YouTuber, TikToker, and an Internet personality. As of June 17, 2024, Hall has accumulated over 1.8 million followers on TikTok. On his primary YouTube channel, Hall currently has over 2 million subscribers and over 231 million views. Hall has a secondary YouTube channel, "Ryan Hall, Y'all XTRA," that currently has over 748,000 subscribers and over 107 million views. Hall also has a tertiary YouTube channel "The Y'all Squad" that currently has over 40,000 subscribers.
On May 9, 2016, a violent multi-vortex EF4 tornado struck southern Katie, Oklahoma. The tornado was extremely erratic and killed one person while causing $1,000,000 in damages. The tornado was extremely photogenic, and was heavily documented by storm chasers and civilians.
