How death defying storm tanks collect valuable information
Every day, storm chasers risk their lives to get up close and personal with some of our world’s deadliest natural disasters. What kind of engineering feats have they developed to hunt tornados and live to tell the tale?
As vehicle engineering advances, storm chasers grow more innovative as well, modifying cars and trucks into heavy duty vehicles with top of the line sensors, all in the name of reaching their ultimate goal: to drive into the eye of a storm and live to tell the tale.
Storm chasing itself began in 1956 with David Hoadley, who took handwritten notes on storms from a safe distance in his Chevrolet Bel Air. His efforts inspired countless other storm chasers to follow in his footsteps.
Dr. Joshua Wurman, a meteorologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created the Doppler on Wheels, mounting radar units onto trucks to form a rapid deployment force that collected real-time atmospheric data from storms for the first time. Sean Casey modified a 1997 Ford F-450 into the armored Tornado Intercept Vehicle, and later upgraded it into the Tornado Intercept Vehicle 2 with a Dodge Ram 3500, all in the name of capturing up close, high-definition footage of storms using a state of the art IMAX camera.
More recently, Reed Timmer took modified storm chaser vehicle design even further, and developed The Dominator 3. Based on a Ford F340 Super Duty, it weighs over 4,500 kg, and can run up to 321 miles per hour. In 2019, Reed and his team launched the Dominator Skyfall sensor into an EF4-rated tornado, using The Dominator 3’s built-in rocket launcher. The sensor flew to a height of 30,000 ft, and gathered groundbreaking data from inside the tornado.
What heights could storm chasing engineering reach next?
