Here are the Storm Chasers crew's own tales of how they came to love and respect twisters.

Sean Casey - extreme filmmaker

"On the very first chase day I was hooked and have been going out and chasing tornadoes each year for the past nine seasons. Every year I got more comfortable with the act of chasing tornadoes and each year I had the desire to get closer. With the TIV we could film the action up close where all the drama and power is found and do so in the relative safety of a 16,000lb armoured vehicle."

Ronan P Nagle - TIV driver

"My first experience with tornadoes was during the 'super outbreak' in April 1974. Huddling in my grandparents' basement with the emergency broadcast tone sounding on the TV is one of my earliest memories. In 2000, I spent two months chasing tornadoes and it was love at first chase. Since then, storm chasing has been something that I look forward to all year long."

Byron Turk - TIV navigator
 
"While initially interested in music and movies, my life would be changed forever when a former teacher of mine, Jackie Apodaca, passed my name along to her friend Sean Casey who needed help on his IMAX movie. A summer of storm chasing later left me with a new friend and a new obsession."

Dr Josh Wurman - research meteorologist

"As a youth, I tried to impress friends and girls with my home weather station and insect collection, which, among other factors, kept me well out of the running for homecoming king. Eventually I earned my PhD and moved to Colorado to work at NCAR [National Center for Atmospheric Research] on bistatic radar networks, a new type of weather radar system that I had invented. However, after seeing real high plains thunderstorms close up, and tornadoes, I got distracted and conceived of building a network of big, fast scanning radars that could drive right up to tornadoes, inside hurricanes, and inside other nice weather. The DOW program and the ROTATE tornado and hurricane studies were born."

Herb Stein - DOW driver

"My formal education in meteorology was seeded in 1987, at the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology. While in Oklahoma I obtained field experience in severe weather when I was invited to become a part of Dr. Bluestein’s renowned storm chase team. In 1997, I was invited by Dr. Josh Wurman to participate with his Doppler on wheels (DOW) project and have remained with him ever since."

Mara McFalls - SCOUT driver

"I had never seen a tornado before going out with these guys. I had no idea what to expect, except that I would be close to all the action. This is what I knew - most people see tornadoes and run away, but these guys run toward them? I wanted to find out what was behind that impulse."

Justin Walker - SCOUT navigator

"In the fall of 2000, I began attending the University of Oklahoma to study meteorology, and began actively storm chasing. Chasing for hundreds of hours and driving thousands of miles in pursuit of tornadoes has honed my skill set so that I am able to do this as a full-time job with the DOWs."

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Watch the crew in action in the Video Gallery.