5 Things You Never Knew About Chasing Tornadoes

For a select few, chasing after dangerous storms is their career and main source of income. For a somewhat less select few, it is a hilariously expensive and deadly hobby. Well, for more than 15 years, Tim Baker has ridden headlong against the raging sky demons we call tornadoes. Here's one of his videos, just to give you an idea:

We asked him what it's like to have one of the world's most ridiculously dangerous hobbies, and we found out that ...

#5. Tornadoes Are Crowded

Michael Seger, Wes Kane

Most people picture the movie Twister when they think of storm chasing -- one or two cars' worth of sexy badasses roaring toward destiny. But in reality? It's a huge conga line of cars jostling to get the best view -- you know you're getting close to a monster storm when there is a traffic jam heading toward the danger. They don't show the surrounding area in the storm chaser reality shows because there are 200 cars or so around them. It's not just you versus nature. It's you and everyone with a dinged-up car and camera versus nature.

J.R. Hehnly
We cropped out the guy with an "Event Parking $10" sign.

This is relatively new -- just 15 years ago, a "crowded" storm might have as many as 20 chasers. But storm chasing is one of the many things social media made more popular. Nowadays, you'll find 200 people on any given large storm, making money or just striving to have the best profile pic in their circle of friends (you guys know you can just Photoshop that shit, right?). It's gotten to the point that the price of storm footage has dropped dramatically. Good footage is as hard to make as it's ever been, but shitty footage is plentiful, and let's be honest -- Fox 11 Action News of Lumpberg, Illinois, will take the cheapest option they can.

George Doyle/Stockbyte/Getty Images
When news breaks, they're the unpaid interns you can count on.

So you get this ridiculous scene where, as you gaze upon the terrible spectacle of Mother Nature's fury, you're surrounded by cars beeping, chasers swearing at each other, new chasers panicking and blocking the road, etc. And, as you can imagine, when you double a town's population with nutjobs hunting the murderwinds, odds go up that something bad will happen. Recklessness feeds off recklessness as people compete for the best shots. One time, a new chaser rolled his vehicle in the middle of the road, blocking everyone in the path of the oncoming tornado, until someone got the kid out of the way just before he kicked off his own gritty Wizard of Oz reboot.

During another storm in Kansas, almost 250 cars pulled into a chase (I counted), and since it was rain wrapped, the only people who could go in close for good footage was Reed Timmer's TV show crew, as they had their special armored vehicles that can punch through a tornado and usually have a good chance of survival. But keep in mind that even with their fancy, specialized gear, if their vehicles had rolled and hit a power line, they'd still be screwed.

#4. The Dumbest Things Can Get You Killed

Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images

First of all, here's what it's like when a tornado starts forming right on top of where you're sitting:

My daughter and I once chased a storm just like that one in the Texas Panhandle, and guess what -- our tire blew out right when the tornado was on the way. Lucky for me, it was near a farm, and we were able to get into a barn just before the storm hit us. The barn started bending under the strain of the winds, which snapped some power lines, which sparked a fire in the barn. Fortunately the barn managed to stay up until the storm passed, but that was the day I learned that failure to check my damned tires could be lethal.

So while it may seem endearing to imagine a scrappy storm chaser in a beat-up van going after a storm, that's a recipe for disaster. Many new storm chasers go out in junk sedans or pickup trucks with four bald tires -- rundown vehicles they figure they can afford to risk getting pelted with storm debris or hail. These people are asking to die.

Jason Kempin/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images
Try an Italian sports car instead. You'll still die, but at least the coroner will think you were cool.

Mobility is the only thing keeping you alive, so you always need to know A) your escape route at any given moment and B) that your vehicle absolutely is going to work. You need backups of everything -- wheels, equipment, even vehicles. Remember, the worst case scenario isn't just "you die" -- it's "You die and your car becomes a two-ton cannonball hurtled toward some innocent person or house." So, yeah, you remember to check your oil.

#3. There Are Rules

vicnt/iStock/Getty Images

Tornadoes are unpredictable -- thinking you know what they're about to do is a good way to wind up getting impaled with debris flying at 200 mph. For example, you might not be dealing with a tornado -- here's me filming three different ones that formed around us in the exact same spot:

But observing a tornado isn't much different from observing anything else in nature that's capable of destroying you. You can't predict exactly what a grizzly bear is going to do next, but you can learn some general rules (for instance, you know with that particular creature that you're safe in a helicopter). Tornadoes are the same -- the whole reason that running toward a tornado isn't pure suicide is that there are specific rules you can follow if you want to stay alive.

Comstock/Stockbyte/Getty Images, Ablestock.com/AbleStock.com/Getty Images

Unless the two come together, in which case rule one is "Reconcile sins."

First, half a mile away is seen as the general safe distance -- the distance where, upon seeing it coming right for you, you can hop into your car and drive screaming in the other direction. But you do have to get that close in my line of work -- the best shots are the ones unobscured by rain and mist, so the less that's between you and the funnel cloud, the better. At a quarter mile out, however, you need to be really insane and/or you really need to know what you're doing. Any closer than that, and you're depending on blind luck -- remember, a tornado can change direction at any moment. You're just wrapping your head in bacon and sticking it into the lion's mouth at that point.

Second, you follow the tornado. Meaning, you make sure you're on the ass end of it as it's heading away from you, and that you damned well know how to tell the difference. If it's heading toward us and we are within that half-mile radius, we turn the other way.

Thinkstock Images/Stockbyte/Getty Images
"I think that's about half a mile. Go get the surveyor's wheel."

Third, make sure there is someone nearby to rescue your ass if you get bogged down. The more experienced people have "buddies" who will always help them out in a jam. I have a few out there, and we have saved each other a few times. (Note: It doesn't matter how careful you are, there are lots of ways to get in trouble when you're stalking a force of nature that can shred a brick building.) Sure, there is an unspoken rule among us storm chasers that if anyone is in trouble, we do our best to get them out -- but in a life-or-death situation, don't let the kindness of strangers be your backup plan.

Because if there's one thing we've found out ...

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