8/9/2019 May 20, 2010 - Dr. Josh Wurman's comments on The Weather Channel website

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Storm Chasers: Too close to the storm?by Becky Kellogg , on May 20, 2010 11:19 am ET

EDITOR'S NOTE: Th is week, weather.com did its first web series. It was an

exclusive look at the growth in the cottage industry of storm chasing. One of the

biggest issues raised was the explosion in the number of chasers and how thoseexpansive numbers are creating very dangerous conditions for everyone on the

road.

After our series, VORTEX 2 scientist Josh Wurman sounded off about his concerns

surrounding storm chasers during a recent chase in Oklahoma. He said the sheer

volume of chasers kept his team of meteorologists from being able to gather

important scientific information about tornadoes. Below are his thoughts as well

as links to the entire weather.com series, "Storm Chasers: Too Close to the

Storm?"

PART 1 Storm Chasers: Too Close to the Storm?

PART 2 Editorials from Chasers

Close Enough to the Storm

Getting Close, but Staying Safe

PART 3 Storm Chasers: What's Next

Josh Wurman, Ph. D, CtrSevere Weather Research

There were huge crowds of storm chasers yesterday (Wednesday, May 19) and thosechasers did direct

harm to Vortex 2 science. There were hundreds of them andthey were traveling at the same speed as

the storm and they were preventing myability to get ahead of the storm to outflank it and to get ahead of

it and V2 has an important mission. Were trying tostudy tornado genesis so that the warnings are made

better. I think thats more important than gettingclose up video of a tornado but apparently these

hundreds of chasers didntthink that and they wouldnt let us by. Its always easy to say its a few bad

eggs but no body let us by we hada hundred cars right in front of us there were chase tour companies

armaturesout there trying to stay as close as they can to the mess cyclone and notletting the scientists

by. I think itsreally disgraceful theyre not letting us do our important mission

Oklahoma has the most. It has big universities and there are lots ofstudents graduating from those

universities who are graduating from theirclasses now and theyre out there. But there are also chase

tour companies who arevery interested in the weather. I thinkits great people appreciate the weather, I

support storm chasing. Its likehiking or rafting. People are out appreciating nature but please let the

sciencevehicles by. We have an importantmission. Were trying to make the towns you live in safer by

learning how tomake better warnings

Im hoping by saying this I will help these chasers understand andthese tour companies understand that

we have an important mission. Were notjust another chaser behind you. When aDOW (Doppler on

Wheels) is behind you with big flashing amber lights and wants to get by. Were notout there trying to get

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video. Were not out there giving a chase tour to get abetter view of the storm. Pull over 30 seconds. It

doesnt take long for a bunchof our vehicles to get by and you can get back on the storm and see it and

getvideo to your hearts content. But we are out there trying to make tornadowarnings better. Let us do

our job.

What Vortex2 has to do is get radars out and other assets outahead of the storm. We were ducking

under the storm the other day trying to go60 on a 60 mile an hour road to get ahead of the storm. The

chasers going 30 mph just wanted toparallel the storm so there was a rolling road block that consisted of

maybea hundred vehicles which we couldnt pass it was very frustrating.For my operations and for Vortex2 it meant we did not get duelDoppler storm for nearly the

periods we needed to do to do our science and myarray of 16 tornado pods did not get

deployed. We did not get low leveltornado data of those tornadoes so science really took a

hit yesterday (Wednesday, May 19) becausechasers did not let us get past.

More Links:

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Your tornado risk by month

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