The tornado’s appearance each year is inextricable from human memory in North America and across the earth’s temperate climates. The Arikara called it the Black Wind. To others it was Whirlwind Woman, the bringer of life-giving rain and death, her arrival as inevitable as the seasons. The Cheyenne and Arapaho believed the caterpillar created the whirlwind, and entomologists know today that they often hatch when the barometric pressure falls before a storm. The Plains tribes grasped something essential about the correlation, though the signs to them were supernatural.
Those who’ve been caught by surprise couldn’t be faulted for concluding that, even with all our Doppler radar arrays and rawinsonde weather balloons, meteorology hasn’t demystified tornadoes one bit. We now live in an era when the Mars Pathfinder rover has touched down on the Red Planet. The human genome has been mapped. Physicists use particle accelerators to study the subatomic fundament of all matter. But for all our technological achievement, twisters still have the power to confound even the most advanced civilization the planet has ever known. When they come, the best any of us can do is get out of the way or place layers of thick steel and reinforced concrete between our bodies and the wind.
We still can’t predict which storms will give rise to killer twisters, nor do we fully understand the process by which weak tornadoes become strong. Until recently, the core of a tornado remained as remote and untouchable as the surface of the sun. Researchers still dream of the day when forecasters have the tools to issue thirty-minute advance notifications—warnings not only of imminent tornado formation, but of potential intensity. Such notice could give residents in towns such as Jarrell the time to shelter in place, to find adequate protection, or to escape. But before that day comes, scientists must first answer questions about the nature of the vortex so fundamental they could be posed by a layman: Why do some storms produce tornadoes and others do not? What sequence of events gives birth to the biggest, long-track EF5s? Can we identify the signs before it’s too late?
There is a future in which there are answers to these questions and we are given more than fourteen minutes between the warning and the darkness at the door.
Humans have always invented monsters to explain the inexplicable. In Romania, where tornadoes are infrequent but have been known to occur, folk mythology tells of the balaur, or dragon. As the myth goes, this creature soars high above, trailing a long, lashing tail. Its roar is deafening. Its breath turns the water in the clouds to ice. It carries people into the sky. And in the end, the dragon leaves nothing but ruin in its wake.
Hundreds of years ago, the Romanian villagers couldn’t explain what had happened to them, so they invented a story. The same happened nearly everywhere else tornadoes touched down. The world has changed enormously since these stories were first uttered, but not every myth has faded.
The tornado is one of the only real dragons the modern world has left. And the only way to dispel the frightening unknown is for someone to steal away with its secrets. If we are to glimpse what lies at the heart of one of the planet’s greatest mysteries, someone must first journey to a place few have witnessed and live to tell about. The task requires invention, a tolerance for danger, and an unusual breed of talented tinkerer.
We know this because there once was such a man.
He got closer than anyone before or since, committing his life with fanatical devotion to the chase and a search for answers. He wasn’t the decorated expert you’d expect. He wasn’t an eminent scientist with a fine academic pedigree or the resources of a major research institute. For the most part, he was just a regular guy—with a dream, an uncommon set of skills, and an insatiable appetite for tracking down extreme storms. This man set out on a mission he’d been told was highly inadvisable, if not completely suicidal. To the shock of the scientific community, he pulled it off. He swept the shroud aside, if only briefly, and showed us all something we’d never before seen—the heart of the tornado.
By proving that the core was not untouchable after all, he pushed the field forward. Then, he pushed too far. He spent decades searching for the ultimate storm. And when he found the one, it upended everything he thought he knew. This is the story of a man who caught what he was chasing. He surpassed his peers, seeming to transcend science with his ability to read the vortex—until the object of his fascination finally turned. It swept down from the sky, carried him up, and took his life.
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
THE WATCHER
JULY 21, 1993
FOG CLINGS TO the low swells of eastern-Colorado rangeland as dawn breaks. The mist walls off the far horizon, and for a few short hours the high plains feel a little more finite. The still air is cool and heavy, almost thick enough to drink. This is how these days often begin. The atmosphere is primed, the air a volatile gas. All it needs is a match.
By noon the summer sun presses down. The sagging fog begins to heat, and the dense haze disperses, along with the morning chill. The faultless dome of heaven takes on a hard, lacquered blue, and the windless air stirs as a steady breeze sweeps up out of the southeast. A skein of
