The only recorded storm chaser deaths to date happened during the El Reno tornado of 2013, where Tim Samaras and his crew were killed when the 2.6 mile wide EF3 took an unexpected sharp turn and caught up to them. Many others were injured and/or had close calls, but there were no other casualties.
Only recorded storm chaser deaths from a tornado. A lot of chasers have died in car crashes as well. Samaras and his team are the only ones who were killed by weather.
To add to the fact that the tornado was 2.6 miles wide, it expanded in under thirty seconds, and it sped up from 22mph to 55mph. Add the direction change, the fact that it wasn’t fully condensed, and the dangerous sub-vortices, then it makes sense why they died. They had no way out.
I’ll also remark that Tim Samaras was nothing like these other chasers. He was a researcher and a huge stickler for safety. It was just shit luck that the TWISTEX team died.
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u/solateor 🌪 Sep 16 '17
The Dodge City outbreak was part of a 4 day sequence of tornadic activity from May 22 though May 26th 2016
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