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Dr. Josh Wurman - Research Meteorologist
"I grew up in Pennsylvania, bereft of any really meaningful opportunities to experience severe weather, hurricanes, even real deep snow. 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. Naturally, I moved on to MIT to search for a better social life. But hating schoolwork, I rushed through it, earning my master's degree at only 21. Then after some aimless additional years in school I dropped out for three years, working for the Air Force on nuclear winter computer simulations and other cheery subjects. Finally returning to MIT, I earned my Ph.D. 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. Somewhere in the middle of this, I went to Asia and met my wife operating a weather radar on an island off the coast of Hong Kong and conned her into believing that Oklahoma was just like Hong Kong. We have four young children who, so far, show no unhealthy obsessive interests in tornadoes, hurricanes or radars."
Herb Stein - DOW Driver
"During my childhood years in Berea, Ohio, I had my first exposure to tornadoes viewing the nearby devastation in Strongsville, Ohio, after the Palm Sunday tornado outbreak of 1965. 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. Over the years I had continued to work with Bluestein in acquisition of tornado data using weather balloons, instrumented pods and portable Doppler radar. 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. To date, I have seen or collected data on perhaps 200 tornadoes ranging from small, short-lived ones to mile-wide giants that travel many tens of miles. During the off season I enjoy providing lectures for civic groups and public schools on severe weather. I also furnish tornado-related video and photographs for television, educational and entertainment purposes. In my off time, I reside in upstate New York with my young son and daughter. I also volunteer for my local fire and rescue service."
