In Joplin, a child’s play set: Marshall, “Damage Survey,” 16.
false-alarm rate of roughly 70 percent: J. Brotzge and S. Erickson. “A 5-Yr Climatology of Tornado False Alarms,” Weather and Forecasting, August 2011.
The people of Joplin had seventeen minutes: “Joplin, Missouri, Tornado,” NWS Central Region Service Assessment, 23.
Xenia, Ohio, received no warning at all: J. Brotzge and S. Erickson, “Tornadoes without NWS Warning,” Weather and Forecasting 25 (February 2010): 161.
it had knocked out power to four of Xenia’s five sirens: Staff, “In Xenia, Warning Bells Silenced,” CBS News, September 21, 2000.
In 2016, the Storm Prediction Center: Jeff Frame, “This Is How the ‘Surprise’ Indiana and Ohio Outbreak of August 24, 2016, Happened,” U.S. Tornadoes, August 2016, http://www.ustornadoes.com/2016/08/26/surprise-indiana-ohio-tornado-outbreak-august-24-2016-happened/.
The Arikara called it the Black Wind: Nani Suzette Pybus, “Whirlwind Woman: Native American Tornado Mythology and Global Parallels” (PhD diss., Oklahoma State University, December 2009), 39, 43, 234.
Researchers still dream of the day: Interviews with Joshua Wurman, founder of the Center for Severe Weather Research.
In Romania, where tornadoes are infrequent: Bogdan Antonescu and Aurora Bell, “Tornadoes in Romania,” Monthly Weather Review, March 2015, http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/MWR-D-14-00181.1.
CHAPTER ONE: THE WATCHER
Fog clings to the low swells: National Weather Service Daily Summary for Local Weather, July 21, 1993, http://maps.wunderground.com/history/airport/KAKO/1993/7/21/DailyHistory.html?req_city=Anton&req_state=CO&req_statename=&reqdb.zip=80801&reqdb.magic=1&reqdb.wmo=99999.
The rain is coming down hard now: Tim Samaras, Driven by Passion, DVD.
It’s isolated, rising above the cloud deck: William Reid, “July 21, 1993, Last Chance, Colorado, Tornado,” http://stormbruiser.com/chase/1993/07/21/july-21-1993-last-chance-colorado-tornado/.
He has never chased outside his home state: Andy Van De Voorde, “Swept Away: Storm Chasers Don’t Need a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind Blows,” Denver Westword, August 26, 1992, 26.
CHAPTER TWO: A BOY WITH AN ENGINEER’S MIND
The bane of his mother’s household appliances: Interviews with Jim Samaras, brother of Tim Samaras.
Tim built his first transmitter: Tim Samaras, WJ0G, QRZ.com, https://www.qrz.com/db/WJ0G.
The house echoed with the roar: Interviews with Jim Samaras.
his first real glimpse: Stefan Bechtel. Tornado Hunter: Getting Inside the Most Violent Storms on Earth. (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 2009), 47–49.
For spending cash: Interviews with Jim Samaras.
this imperturbable faith: Interviews with Larry Brown.
Among his earliest projects: “Minor Scale Event—Test Execution Report,” Defense Nuclear Agency, January 30, 1986, 1.
To track the blast’s cratering characteristics: Interviews with Robert Lynch.
The day of the test: Interviews with Larry Brown.
Then, on a winter day in 1980: Interviews with Kathy Samaras.
CHAPTER THREE: THIS LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE SKY
The urge returns the way it first began: Bechtel, “Tornado Hunter,” 9.
In 1990 he enrolls in a six-week: Interviews with Judi Richendifer.
He learns why Tornado Alley is such a powder keg: Conversations with Gabe Garfield.
In the years before smartphones: Interviews with Tim Tonge.
antennas swaying like reeds from the roof of the Datsun: Interviews with Brad Carter.
Tim colonizes a used blue ’91 Dodge Caravan: Tim Samaras, “Dryline Chaser,” StormEyes.org, http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/vehicles/timsam.htm.
Over at DRI, they call it kludging: Interviews with Bud Reed.
On storm days: Interviews with Pat Porter.
He remains a good husband: Interviews with Kathy Samaras.
“Some call it a hobby”: Van De Voorde, “Swept Away,” 26.
the Dryline Chaser is now recognizable: Samaras, Driven by Passion.
“I got some great stuff out in Kansas”: Interviews with Mike Nelson.
When the spring and early summer have passed: Interviews with Kathy Samaras.
To Amy’s profound embarrassment: Interviews with Amy (Samaras) Gregg and Jenny (Samaras) Scott.
CHAPTER FOUR: THE SPARK
Nobody saw it coming: Interviews with Frank Tatom.
The damage path was a half mile at its widest: “November 15, 1989, Tornado Details,” National Weather Service, https://www.weather.gov/hun/hunsur_1989-11-15_tornadodetails.
the energy equivalent of half a ton of TNT per second: Frank B. Tatom and Stanley Vitton, “The Transfer of Energy from a Tornado into the Ground,” Seismological Research Letters, January 2001, fig. 2.
Its components are quite simple: Frank B. Tatom, and Stanley Vitton, “Method and Apparatus for Seismic Tornado Detection,” US Patent and Trademark Office, January 1995.
Tim is more excited than he has ever been: Interviews with Pat Porter.
Just south of Rome, Kansas: Samaras, Driven by Passion.
He’s good at this: Interviews with Frank Tatom and Pat Porter.
What is stopping Tim: Interviews with Pat Porter.
The answer arrives in 1998: Interviews with Larry Brown.
CHAPTER FIVE: CATCHING THE TORNADO
a 1925 monster that left a three-state trail of destruction: Peter S. Felknor, “The Tri-State Tornado,” iUniverse, 2004.
official policy forbade even the utterance: Timothy A. Coleman and Kevin R. Knupp, “The History (and Future) of Tornado Warning Dissemination in the United States,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, May 2011, 569.
stampeding cattle: Marlene Bradford, “Historical Roots of Modern Tornado Forecasts and Warnings,” Weather and Forecasting, August 1999, 508.
It took two freak storms: Robert A. Maddox and Charlie A. Crisp, “The Tinker AFB Tornadoes of March 1948,” Weather and Forecasting, August 1999, http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0434(1999)014%3C0492%3ATTATOM%3E2.0.CO%3B2.
The first civilian tornado “bulletins”: Charles A. Doswell, Alan R. Moller, and Harold E. Brooks, “Storm Spotting and Public Awareness since the First Tornado Forecasts of 1948,” Weather and Forecasting, August 1999, http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0434(1999)014%3C0544%3ASSAPAS%3E2.0.CO%3B2.
The areas encompassed by any given watch were so vast: Stephen F. Corfidi, “The Birth and Early Years of the Storm Prediction Center,” Weather and Forecasting, August 1999, 515.
Twisters seemed to be utterly repelled: Howard B. Bluestein, Tornado Alley: Monster Storms of the Great Plains (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
Launched in 1945, the Thunderstorm Project: Roscoe R. Braham, “The Thunderstorm Project, 18th Conference on Severe Local Storms Luncheon Speech,” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, August 1996, https://docs.lib.noaa.gov/noaa_documents/NOAA_related_docs/history/thunderstorms/thunderstorm.html.
Each storm, Byers discovered, results from a confluence: Interviews with Gabe Garfield.
Keith Browning: K. A. Browning and G. B. Foote, “Airflow and Hail Growth in Supercell Storms and Some Implications for Hail Suppression,” Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, July 1976, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49710243303/abstract.
an updraft on steroids: Keith A. Browning, “Airflow and Precipitation Trajectories within Severe Local Storms,” Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, November 1964, http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469(1964)021%3C0634%3AAAPTWS%3E2.0.CO%3B2.
In the turbulent springtime months: Interviews with Gabe Garfield.
The first Doppler scan of a tornado: Rodger Brown, ed., “The Union City, Oklahoma, Tornado of 24 May 1973,” NOAA Technical Memorandum ERL NSSL-80, December 1976, 3.
they assumed they had found an error in the
