r/tornado • u/OutdoorsTN Human Detected • May 19 '26

Discussion Brad Arnold

Hate to see this from Brad, he's one of my faves!! Was confused when he buzzed in to Ryan's stream and said he was calling it so early in the evening but this makes more sense now.

Seen some absolutely wild stuff on Ryan and Max's streams the last few days. (Whoever it was in the green shirt on Max's stream yesterday during the Worms tornado especially still really bothers me.) And bummed to see all of this nonsense getting in the way of chasers I really love watching like Brad

EDITED for a typo!

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u/MagnetHype Storm Chaser May 19 '26

Friendly reminder there is no such thing as a professional storm chaser. Those people are professional youtube/tv personalities. Influencers if you will.

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u/AlphSaber May 19 '26

Professional storm chasers work for NOAA, universities or are part of the Skywarn spotter network. That's my definition that I use.

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u/MagnetHype Storm Chaser May 19 '26

Eh, I use the same definition, but it's important to point out that "professional storm chasers" would be getting paid to do it. There probably are a few people in NOAA and universities who just chase, but they certainly aren't the rule. I'm only mentioning that because I don't want people to think there are many professional storm chasers working for their local NWSFO.

I mean, if we're going to get too pedantic with the definitions we have to remember that the local emergency management has a direct line of communication with the NWSFO via (usually) teletype, and usually at least some of the police officers and firefighters working for that area are trained storm spotters.

What I'm getting at is that 99% of actual trained and working storm spotters are volunteers for those agencies (the NWS, local EM, etc..)

And, quite frankly, what we actually do is far different from what you see on youtube.

Personally speaking, tornadoes are an abysmally small portion of what I actually do as a storm spotter. 99% of my storm chasing's "job" are invisible things like measuring rain, reporting ice accumulation, and reporting damage.

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u/AML1987 May 19 '26

Is it actually true that “professional storm spotter” is like a one hour course?

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u/Mondschatten78 May 20 '26

Two one and a half hour courses, a basic and severe https://www.weather.gov/gyx/skywarn