Pre-"Twisters:" The Origin of Storm Chasing

How did our modern tornado warning program begin? It started in Oklahoma in 1972 with plucky meteorology students and experimental radars.

With the huge success of Twisters this summer and 1996's Twister before it, it is likely most assume storm chasing has been around forever. Not true! Storm chasing began in 1972 in a classroom of stinky Felger Hall at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Joe Golden, a scientist with the National Severe Storms Laboratory addressed a meeting of the OU student chapter of the American Meteorological Society. 

Joe asked us to chase tornadoes so the efficacy of two experimental Doppler radars could be tested. I was going through some files in my office last week and found the original plans of the storm chase program. 

This was well before the era of cell phones. That first season, we spent a lot of time running around Oklahoma under blue skies or cumulus-filled skies -- with few intercepted thunderstorms, let alone tornadoes. But, we learned quickly.

By 1973, the chase teams spread out across Oklahoma and had great success with two teams intercepting the Union City Tornado while it was being measured by the Doppler radars. A brief movie of the intercept is below. It is narrated by the late Al Moller (then with the National Weather Service) who was one of the meteorology students who intercepted the storm. 

Within just months, scientific articles were being published about what was being learned. Below is a screen capture of the online version of Weatherwise, which was the first scientific article resulting from the chase program. We still use some of the information learned in the Union City case history. 

For historical reasons, I am publishing Joe's memo to us, in full, below.

Another Discovery

On June 4, my fiancé Kathleen (on her first-ever storm chase) and I intercepted what is now called a "low precipitation (LP) supercell" near the town of Chickasha. It is believed to be the first time one of these storms was scientifically documented. 

The photo shows a rapidly rotating "wall cloud" with considerable large hail falling, but almost no rain. The relative position of the wall cloud is depicted below. When I found a pay phone and called the NSSL special phone number (see memo), I reached meteorologist Don Burgess at NSSL. He was dumbfounded because that storm didn't look like it was severe on radar. The LP supercell moved northeast and produced a tornado in the northwest part of the city of Norman. More knowledge acquired!

Storm chasing continues to yield fascinating results. Dr. Reed Timmer fired a rocket into a tornado in 2019 in northeast Kansas that measured the internal structure of a tornado. Results have been published so science -- again -- moved forward. This spring, he published video of the fascinating Westmoreland, KS Tornado from a high-based thunderstorm (like the one in Chickasha in 1974). 

Because of its importance to the history of weather science, the entire memo regarding the beginning of the storm chasing program is published below. BTW, we received no pay, not even mileage reimbursement. We did it for the love of our science and the hope it would lead to better tornado warnings. It did. 

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