Challenge Accepted: I chased a storm!

[open forge]

Challenge Accepted: I chased a storm!

With social media a growing number of amateur storm chasers have joined with professionals to gather reliable data about our changing climate. Crowd funding equipment, 3D printing and the growing community has given these storm chasers access to bet equipment and given them the ability to contribute to scientific modelling. Many chasers have new techniques to reduce risk but the risk is still there and very real.

The potential downside to a video like this is the reality that maybe you miss all the weather and catch nothing.

The story would really be the people who do this, their close calls and reasons for putting themselves at risk. This way if you don't catch a good storm there is still enough for a video. Visiting the aftermath of a storm and talking to people about climate change, if they feel storms are getting worse etc.

[split blaze]

OH GOD YES

PLEASE

[placid maple]

@open forge @split blaze do you guys have any suggestions on who might be a professional we could reach out to about a project like this?

[open forge]

Are you looking for specific people or organizations as well? Its a pretty tight community so introductions may lead to the people you want to talk to.

For the actual storm chasers I would approach people already on youtube since they will be used to filming etc like Reed Timmer or Freddy McKinney come to mind of the top of my head. It would be interesting with those two because one is decidedly more high tech and one is more about the spotting.

For the education side I would reach out to NWS but it would probably more interesting to talk to the people at Oklahoma University through School of Meteorology and/or the School of Advanced Radar Research about the intensity, damage, frequency of storms and if storm chaser data is useful or even used.

The SkyWARN will likely be interesting to talk with about how they train storm chasers to collect useful data, safety etc. They will also likely have a range of people you could connect with.

Maybe also talk to CAPS at OU as well because I believe they handle actually modeling the data from the SkyWARN chasers with other data collected nation wide.

Just my initial thoughts and the direction I would go.

[split blaze]

You could reach out to tornado chaser Reed Timmer, who also happens to feature in a show called “Tornado Chasers”. Another good one would be Freddy McKinney, and both are accustomed to filming documentary, and normal style. As he said, it’s a pretty tight community, so if you talk to some storm chasers it would eventually lead to you meeting the two above. You can even do something like, I feature on your show, you feature on mine. It could even bring good attention to their shows and maybe even yours.

[inner yew]

these are really great start points yall! (: