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Introduction
Nature Unleashed - Lightning
Nature Unleashed - Hurricane
Nature Unleashed - Tornado
Nature Unleashed - Waterspout
Chase Checklist - Who's Who
Chase Checklist - Meteorology
Chase Checklist - Equipment
Global Hotspots - Global Warming
Global Hotspots - El Nino
Global Hotspots - Hit LIst
Thrill Seekers - An essential trait
Thrill Seekers - Virtual buzz
Find Out more
Credits
Back to main Site
Monday 7 January 2002, 8pm
For most of us, lightning, hurricanes and tornadoes spell danger and devastation. But for the Storm Hunters, getting to the heart of the experience is their life's obsession, to photograph and film nature in its extreme. Channel 4’s two-part series tracks leading practitioners of this highly-dangerous art, as they face incredible personal risk in search of the perfect storm. Buffeted by catastrophic winds of 250kmh laced with debris, or thrown five metres by a lightning strike, this is a real life white knuckle ride.
To be in the right place at the right time, the storm hunters need to know how to use the internet and meteorological reports to spot the next opportunity. Camera equipment is always at the ready to snap the dramatic images.
With stunning pictures, this site investigates the different weather phenomena, their causes, the equipment needed to track them and why people like taking risks. We also look at some of the films inspired by these messengers of nature’s wrath, and include details of how to get more information.
Nature Unleashed - Lightning
Lightning originates from the towering mass of cumulonimbus cloud, the bringer
of thunderstorms. It can strike from cloud to cloud, cloud to ground or inside
one cloud (intracloud).
Water droplets freeze to form ice crystals inside the higher part of the mass at a certain altitude, which varies with ground conditions.
The separation between the ice and water droplets in the lower part of the clouds and friction between the cloud and the air causes a positive electrical charge to build in the top of the cloud and a negative charge to grow at the bottom. When the difference between the two charges becomes strong enough to break the resistance of the air to create a conducting path (often hundreds of millions of volts), lightning is caused.
Air in the path of the lightning heats rapidly to thousands of degrees, expanding and then quickly shrinking back. It is the air pushed outwards around the discharge of electricity that makes the sound of thunder.
Because light travels far faster than sound (300,000km per second as against 20km per second), lightning is seen before the thunder is heard. The further away the cloud is from the viewer, the greater the delay between the thunder and the lightning that precedes it.
Lightning strikes can kill or destroy as the force passes to ground, with anything high or made of metal at particular risk as the closest and best conductors.
The US is one of the most active areas for lightning and, according to the
World Meteorological Organisation, the phenomenon kills around 100 people there
each year.
Known variously as hurricane, typhoon or, meteorologically correctly, tropical cyclone, the cyclone weather system of low barometric pressure at its centre reaches the defining criticial intensity when it registers at least force 12 on the Beaufort Scale. In terms of speed this is around 100kmh or faster. Hurricanes may be more than 500km wide and often travel at up to 250kmh.
In the northern hemisphere the air circulates anticlockwise and in the southern hemisphere it circulates clockwise.
Hurricanes are the result of a huge differential in atmospheric pressure, caused by sea temperature variations. When the ocean warms to 26°C, huge volumes of water evaporate, with spiralling winds sweeping the moisture upwards to create large cumulonimbus clouds. The release of latent heat from the water vapour condensing into drops adds more warmth to the air, which accelerates the growth of the storm.
The spinning air creates cumulonimbus clouds, bringing torrential rain circulating around a low pressure centre, the eye. This low pressure can also cause the sea level to rise significantly, causing devastating flooding when the storm hits land.
The ocean origins explain why coastal areas of warm countries suffer greater numbers of hurricanes than elsewhere. Power in the wind quickly dies when it reaches land and its supply of fuel — humid air — is removed.
Caused by rising columns of warm air pushed along by a strong wind, tornadoes may be narrower than hurricanes by a few hundred feet but are stronger, often carrying twice the power. They reach tremendous heights and are usually accompanied by funnel-shaped clouds. They are sometimes called twisters or whirlwinds, although the latter term can refer to any small-diameter column vortex of fast-swirling air.
The strongest come with thunderstorms, and are fuelled by humid air reacting with the towering cumulonimbus cloud which often stand 16,000m high in the tropics in a more intense repeat of the hurricane process.
Updrafts at the centre of a tornado will suck up objects in their path. These can range from dust or water to animals, people, masonry and vehicles, if the force is strong enough. Once the wind dies down, objects collected on its way may be deposited — bringing some gruesome fallout raining down from the sky.
The huge forces that often form at the centre of a tornado will suck water up if it passes over a lake, river or ocean. A waterspout will form rising up to the accompanying cloud. The huge sucking power behind the rising spiralling air of the cumulonimbus cloud may collect water, creating a waterspout, without having the strength to create a tornado.
Storm hunters will travel thousands of miles to observe a storm for scientific research, to capture the images, or simply for pleasure. Storm spotters will report on weather in their local area.
Storm chasing began to take off in the 1970s and has grown since with increased worldwide interest in weather phenomena such as global warming and inspiring images produced by chasers. Many storm chasers are affiliated with universities or research organisations.
Chase Checklist - Meteorology
Understanding weather and being able to predict where the next storm will strike
is essential to avoid wasted days travelling to non-events or missed opportunities.
Following TV or radio weather forecasts and studying websites, chasers will look out for the key ingredients of a worthy weather pattern: instability, moisture, lifting pressure and rising winds. Warm and cold fronts often loom behind these factors. Chasers will often aim for what is known as 'the dryline', where moist and dry air meet.
When there is an increasing pressure difference between two neighbouring areas the air flows more quickly from the high to the low pressure areas, in the same way as water would flow faster down a steeper hill than a gradual decline. Sea tidal activity can add to this effect, which can be further intensified at the time of the equinoxes when gravity from the sun and the moon unify to form a particularly strong pull on the tide, bringing huge wave swells and catastrophic storms.
At the turn of the 19th century, Sir Francis Beaufort developed the now universally recognised scale for measuring wind speed: the Beaufort Scale. This ranges from 0 (under 1kmh, mirror-like sea, vertically-rising smoke and a World Meteorological Organisation designation of calm) to 12 (73kmh or faster, wide-spread spray at sea, far-reaching damage, hurricane).
Tornadoes can also be classified by the Fujita Scale developed by Professor Fujita and Allen Pearson, director of NSSFC (National Severe Storm Forecast Center). This grades their intensity by examining the damage caused after they have passed over a structure made by man.
F0 in the Fujita Scale is a gale strength of 40-72mph causing damage to chimneys, breaking tree branches and pushing over shallow-rooted trees. An extreme F6 would top 319-379mph and fling cars and refrigerators into the air causing serious damage, although no one is sure whether any tornado has reached this intensity.
Chase Checklist - Equipment
Since an essential element of storm chasing is mobility, some sort of vehicle
is a key piece of equipment. Four-wheel drives are favoured, because the adverse
weather conditions will often be too much for an ordinary vehicle.
Emergency supplies and equipment for carrying out basic vehicle repairs are always advisable. Serious chasers may travel into areas cut off from any form of support from the emergency services. In fact, the emergency services will often attempt to bar entry to storm areas. Once there, chasers are on their own in sorting out any problems.
For the same reason and also to get up-to-date information on the direction of a storm, a GPS (Global Positioning System) radio or phone could save a wasted journey or even a life. Increasingly, chasers are calling on laptops, satellite links and cellular phones for the latest on a changing weather situation. But others dismiss such high-tech tools as a distraction, preferring simply to study the sky in their search for a target storm.
For filming or photographing the storm, a domestic video or stills camera is all that is needed, but it must be waterproof. However, for a quality of picture good enough to sell, one will probably need something more upmarket. Check out the various storm chaser websites for more details.
In choosing items, the experts suggest UV filters, good quality lenses (Canon or Nikon, for example and a fixed focal length lens as usually sharper than a zoom lens), tripods and slow films (ISO 100, for example) for better resolution.
As important as the right equipment is a good technique. For example, for sky pictures, lenses will usually need to be focused on infinity. And try not to push lenses to their capability limits.
Trying to predict when lightning will fire for a still shot is fruitless: the best way to capture it is to take random but frequent exposures, and prepare for the fact that many shots will often be needed to get that lucky hit.
Again, the various storm chaser websites will offer advice and provide key links. Much is based on the experience of storm chasing guru Chuck Doswell, of the US National Severe Storms Laboratory, who gives excellent advice on techniques, forecasting and equipment on his own site.
Global Hotspots - Global Warming
Over the past 100 years the mean surface air temperature of the globe has risen from 0.3° to 0.6°C. This warming has caused great international concern, even though it is still within climate pattern variability for the past few thousand years.
Scientists are suspicious that the most recent warming is due to the activity of mankind and will, therefore, exceed the natural limits that prevent the planet overheating. As a result of this anxiety nearly 200 scientists from 25 countries established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988.
At the core of the concern is the greenhouse effect caused by increasing amounts of carbon dioxide. Kept in balance by natural plant decomposition in the autumn and winter and absorption in the spring and summer by the photosynthesis of new vegetation, carbon dioxide, together with other gases, keeps Earth’s warmth in. Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, with ever greater burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, scientists are concerned that an excess of carbon dioxide will upset the heat loss equation and the planet will warm to levels intolerable to life.
The message of cutting carbon dioxide production has now spread throughout the world through conferences such as the Kyoto Summit.
Also under threat is the protective ozone layer of Earth’s atmosphere. Chlorofluorocarbons produced through industrial processes are breaking a hole in this layer, which lets in cancer-causing ultra-violet rays from the sun.
All of these factors have been blamed for changing weather conditions, such as increased incidence of storms in the UK. In addition, there is a risk that the sensitive balance of current weather conditions could be changed, with unpredictable results. A warming temperature over the Atlantic, for example, could divert the Gulf Stream that keeps the UK relatively warmer than its northerly position would suggest. The country’s weather may then cool drastically.
One of the most spectacular weather patterns of recent years has been El Nino. The formally named Southern Oscillation formed in 1997 over a huge expanse of unusually warm sea in the eastern Pacific, affecting ocean circulation and wind patterns, with far-reaching climate disruption.
It has been blamed for everything from Indian and Texan heatwaves to Indonesian
monsoon droughts and rainforest fires and failed African harvests. It is also
seen as the culprit for the 'bleaching' of coral reefs and for Hurricane Mitch,
which killed thousands in Central America.
Global Hotspots - Hit list
Florida is the area perhaps most frequented by the world's storm hunters. And
it is not hard to see why. It has clocked up 350 lightning deaths since 1959,
followed a long way behind by North Carolina and Texas with just under 200.
The warm and often humid weather in the coastal area provides a plentiful supply
of fuel for frequent storms. And an added bonus is that communication routes
are good when compared with other parts of the world which may experience extreme
whether.
The Mississippi basin of the US is another popular hunter destination, vulnerable to severe tornadoes reaching speeds of up to 400kmh. North west Texas and the eastern Texas Panhandle boast stunning tornadoes, with their vast open spaces making for good distance-viewing conditions. Kansas and eastern Colorado also attract hunters for similar reasons.
In the UK, the clash of cold polar air with moist or dry warm air from the southern
areas, such as Biscay, the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift all add
to the tornado-creating cocktail. The country has the highest frequency of reported
tornadoes per unit area of any nation in the world, according to a 1973 study
by the renowned Professor Fujita, who devised a new scale for measuring the
phenomenon. The tornadoes may, however, be weaker than their US counterparts
and other factors, such as a more congested road network and poorer visibility
can render them less spectacular for the serious hunter.
Thrill Seekers - An essential trait
That certain people are more inclined to seek thrills or take risks — shown in studies — has to some extent been blamed on genes.
There are possibly good reasons behind this trait. People who were willing to take risks, even perhaps to their own detriment, would have been advantageous to our ancestors by exploring new territory and discovering which foods were poisonous.
In a 'flight or fight' choice, primitive Homo sapiens had to overcome fear to feed themselves standing against dangerous animals or other phenomena such as extreme weather.
Today, the residual need to confront more nameless fears remains, such as being drawn to the edge of a cliff. Against low risk modern intellectual endeavours, some people need more extreme sensations to give them a buzz, physically, intellectually or socially.
This thrill-seeking trait, whether genetic or environmental in origin, leads some people to dangerous sports, such as white water rafting and bungee jumping. Clearly anyone willing to chase after a life threatening storm is also led, at least in part, by the need for a thrill.
Thrill Seekers - Virtual buzz
Not everyone wants to confront their fears physically. For many people it is
enough to do it vicariously. This explains the popularity of disaster documentaries
and films. A not definitive list of the top 10 movies based on natural or semi-natural
catastrophes would include:
Armageddon (1998): Asteroid threatens to destroy earth
The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961): World knocked of axis by nuclear explosion and heads towards sun
The Day the Earth Moved (1974): Alien makes the globe stand still for peace
Earthquake (1974): Eponymous story set in Los Angeles, with Sensurround
The Hurricane (1937): Film of ruthless politicians amid natural disaster
The Perfect Storm (2000): Storm hunter looks for the weather of the title
The Poseidon Adventure (1972): Liner overturns in tidal wave
The Rains Came (1939): Floods in India
Twister (1995): Romance amid tornado-chasing
When Time Ran Out (1980): Volcano threatens South Sea Island
Websites
Stormchase UK
www.stormchase.co.uk
Wide range of resources and information for UK-based storm chasers and enthusiasts.
Stormtrack
www.stormtrack.org
Merger of two established storm chaser resources, contains comprehensive information
on getting the right equipment, a storm chaser partner service, plus extensive
library and links pages.
The Met Office
www.met-office.gov.uk
Weather data and forecasts for the UK and around the world along with weather
warnings, UV index, marine information and satellite imagery.
Tornado and Storm Research Organisation
www.torro.org.uk/stormcha.htm
Advice on storm chasing from the British-based independent body that researches
extreme weather in the UK and Europe.
Storm Prediction Centre
www.spc.noaa.gov
Site of the SPC that monitors and forecasts thunderstorms, tornadoes and other
hazardous weather phenomena across the US.
Australian Severe Weather
http://australiasevereweather.com
Focusing on cyclones and storm chasing in Australia and the Asia Pacific regions
with a well-informed section on weather observation techniques.
NOAA
www.noaa.gov
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration describes and predicts changes
in the Earth's environment. Both the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the
National Hurricane Center are part of this organisation.
HurricaneTrack.com
www.hurricanetrack.com
Easy-to-understand explanations of hurricane formation, behaviour etc., links
to useful meteorological sites for data and graphics to help track and predict
hurricanes, plus accounts, photos and clips from the expeditions of the site’s
HIRT (Hurricane Intercept Research Team).
Wild Weather
www.wildweather.com
Daily updates on severe weather news, accounts, photos and clips by storm chasers,
plus alternating web cams from ‘where the action is’ weather-wise.
Risk World
www.riskworld.com
Features, articles and links related to all types of risk with sections on the
environment and ecology, as well as the sociological and psychological aspects
of risk-taking.
Where in the World
www.whereintheworld.co.uk/index.htm
Adventure travel and events you never knew existed, including details of storm
chasing expeditions.
virgin.net
www.virgin.net/travel/features/feature_4923.html
Useful article from May 2000, with practical advice about storm chasing holidays
and links to specialist firms that organise them.
Storm Guru
http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/~doswell/stchs.html
Storm guru Chuck Doswell of the US National Severe Storms Laboratory gives excellent
advice on techniques, forecasting and equipment.
Books
Storm Chaser by Warren Faidley (The Weather Channel, 1996) £21.50.
The author describes his experiences photographing lightning, tornadoes and
hurricanes, and covers the techniques as well as the dangers of storm chasing.
Tornado Alley: Monster storms of the Great Plains by Howard B.
Bluestein (Oxford University Press USA, 1999) £18.99.
Drawing on the experiences of a tornado chaser and photographer, this book presents
a historical account of the study of tornadoes and the great storms that spawn
them.
The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger (Fourth Estate, 2000)
£5.99.
Account of the storm that hit North America's eastern seaboard in October 1991,
focusing on the six crew members of the swordfish boat ‘Andrea Gail’,
and the basis for the Hollywood movie of the same name.
Does the Weather Really Matter? by William S. Burroughs (Cambridge
University Press, 1997) £18.95.
The author explores the impact, influence and consequences of extreme weather
from a historical, political and economic perspective.
Philip’s Guide to the Weather by Ross Reynolds (Philip’s,
1999) £9.99.
A straightforward and practical guide to observing, measuring and understanding
the weather.
The Invention of Clouds by Richard Hamblyn (Picador, 2001) £14.99.
Tells the story of Luke Howard and his pioneering work to define cloud structures
— in parts a biography, a history and a scientific study.
The Weather of Britain by Robin Stirling and Ian McCaskill (Giles
de la Mare Publishers, 1997) £19.99.
Examines the extreme weather conditions in Britain and considers their significance
in relation to conditions locally and nationally.
Encyclopedia of Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones by David Longshore
(Facts on File Inc., 2000) £16.95.
A history of all major storms ever recorded with maps, chronologies of their
progress, photographs and their aftermath and comments from witnesses.
Dangerous Games: Ice climbing, storm kayaking, and other adventures from
the extreme edge of sports by Andrew Todhunter (Anchor Books, 2000)
US edition only.
Accounts of extreme sports and adventures in which humans confront the dangers
of the wild, natural world.
Over the Edge by Michael Bane (Orion, 1999) £7.99.
The author relates his adventures in extreme and dangerous sports events around
the world.
Against the Gods: The remarkable story of risk by Peter L. Bernstein
(John Wiley & Sons, 1998) £9.99.
Thought-provoking and wide-ranging history of man's efforts to understand risk
and probability, from gamblers in ancient Greece to modern chaos theory.
Films
Twister directed by Jan de Bont (1996)
As a TV weatherman tries to get his tornado-hunter wife to sign divorce papers
Mother Nature butts in with record-breaking tornadoes that change everyone’s
plans.
Twister directed by Michael Almereyda (1988)
An oddball family on a Kansas farm are trapped in their farmhouse by an impending
storm. A quirky and spaced-out alternative to this film’s more traditional
namesake.
The Perfect Storm directed by Wolfgang Petersen (2000)
True-life drama about a killer storm in the North Atlantic and the sword-fishing
boat caught in it.
The Ice Storm directed by Ang Lee (1997)
Marital disorder, adolescent disenchantment and family crises push two families
to breaking point as an Ice Storm builds up around them.
The Wind directed by Victor Sjöström (1928)
In one of the most beautiful silent films ever made, Lillian Gish moves west
and becomes immersed in a maelstrom of rape, murder and madness — accompanied
by the incessant desert sandstorm.
The Wizard of Oz directed by Victor Fleming (1939)
Strange things can happen when a hurricane hits the Kansas prairies — was
Dorothy the original, if unwilling storm chaser?
Produced to accompany Storm Hunters, a Pioneer TV production, first screened on Channel 4 in January 2002.
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