Hurricane Chasers vs Tornado Chasers

[storm_in_a_teacup]

One of the weird things that has happened to me since I moved to Huntsville is bumping into random storm chasers. I never saw any in Houston but here in Dixie Alley I just randomly encounter them.

This made me wonder...how much larger is the tornado chaser community than the hurricane chaser community? Tornado chasing seems to be its own subculture and rather popular in Huntsville. I'm assuming the hurricane chaser community is much smaller, given that a hurricane will shut down infrastructure for a while, while you can take pictures of a tornado and then go back to your comfy home with electricity and internet to upload your tornado pictures to.

I know one tornado chaser I followed on Facebook said he likes tornadoes, but would be happy if hurricanes ceased to exist because "they always harm someone." I did comment that they can always go out to sea, but nobody really cared lol

[Category5Kaiju]

Not sure about exact size, but I'd imagine that the tornado chasing community is relatively a larger community than the hurricane chasing community. You remember the Discovery Channel show "Storm Chasers" that had Reed Timmer and Tim Samaras? And movies like Twisters and Into the Storm? Yup...all tornado-related. Not to mention, violent tornadoes can happen all around the central US. From Oklahoma to North Dakota to Alabama. And, they can happen in spring, as well as summer and winter. The bigger the danger zone and the more time possible to see one, the more attention it will attract.

While hurricanes can definitely be scary and destructive, unless you're in outer space, the general image of a hurricane is pretty much a big, mean storm that brings heavy rain, winds, and flooding. Tornadoes, however, can take on many forms and shapes, and I think for a person on the ground who wants to take photos, tornadoes can be more "picturesque" in that sense. Tornadoes are also more volatile and vigorous (when I say "vigorous," I mean that while there was only one Hurricane Patricia, there have been countless recorded tornadoes that had windspeeds that rivaled or exceeded 215 mph), and that really captures the chaser's psych and thrill.

I love tracking hurricanes. But I will admit that tornadoes are very interesting and mighty in their own right.

[wwizard]

Not sure about exact size, but I'd imagine that the tornado chasing community is relatively a larger community than the hurricane chasing community. You remember the Discovery Channel show "Storm Chasers" that had Reed Timmer and Tim Samaras? And movies like Twisters and Into the Storm? Yup...all tornado-related. Not to mention, violent tornadoes can happen all around the central US. From Oklahoma to North Dakota to Alabama. And, they can happen in spring, as well as summer and winter. The bigger the danger zone and the more time possible to see one, the more attention it will attract.

While hurricanes can definitely be scary and destructive, unless you're in outer space, the general image of a hurricane is pretty much a big, mean storm that brings heavy rain, winds, and flooding. Tornadoes, however, can take on many forms and shapes, and I think for a person on the ground who wants to take photos, tornadoes can be more "picturesque" in that sense. Tornadoes are also more volatile and vigorous (when I say "vigorous," I mean that while there was only one Hurricane Patricia, there have been countless recorded tornadoes that had windspeeds that rivaled or exceeded 215 mph), and that really captures the chaser's psych and thrill.

I love tracking hurricanes. But I will admit that tornadoes are very interesting and mighty in their own right.

Tornado chasers aren't trying to get into the "eye" of a tornado, so to speak. Seems that would be a death sentence. Hurricane chasers can and do survive the eye of a hurricane.

It seems to be more about the pictures and getting them on social media for a tornado chaser. Maybe a few are trying to collect data somehow, but hurricane chasers seem more likely to be there collecting data. Sure, videos of the wind screaming and occasionally some flying debris, flood waters rising, stuff like that probably makes for good content. Getting that video of a tornado while keeping your distance from it is probably a lot easier to deal with. And as mentioned, you can get your tornado material, go home and upload it with no issues. Areas struck by hurricanes aren't as easy to get out of sometimes.

Then there's the fact that tornado chasers have the ability to chase basically year round usually in a general area of the same country. Sometimes you don't even have to travel to another state, or county for that matter. To chase a hurricane there's going to be some travel involved, sometimes to another country and there's going to be some waiting around and a lot of guesswork. Take this year for example. Not a single hurricane has made landfall anywhere in the Atlantic basin, but now we have Melissa. So that's one in just this part of the world in a year. So unless you're running off to the Philippines, or Japan, China, Australia, whatever, you've got this one shot here with Melissa.

So let's say you want to go after Melissa. You'd have to first figure out not only where she's going, which nobody knows right now, but what it's intensity is likely to be. I think it would suck to chase a cane and it ends up being just an 80 mph blow, especially if you have to travel abroad. And for Melissa you'll have to get on a plane to Jamaica, or Haiti or wherever, and hope you guess right. Then you've got to hope that wherever you hunker down can hold up. That's not always a sure thing in America, never mind a much less affluent country like say Haiti. Then afterwards you've got to hope you can get a flight out of there if there's not too much damage to the infrastructure.

So with all of that, I think it only makes sense there would be more tornado chasers than hurricane chasers. Anybody can get in a pickup truck with a 12 pack and chase a tornado for pics. Hunting down hurricanes takes a whole lot more effort and you get far fewer opportunities.

[chaser1]

Good question, and there is quite a different perspective in how each group achieves a successful chase. Tornado chasers make up a far larger group over all.

Their goal is to predict then drive to the point where genesis may occur, and in the end hopefully witness the lifestyle of a strong tornado. In this risky game of chicken, the object is to get close... but NOT too close. Still, one is on the outside but closely peering in.

When I chased hurricanes, I was only aware of a small number of others who did the same. Typically a couple or a few of us would chase together and occassionally might hear about one or two others that might have also chased that same hurricane. On the surface, Hurricane Chasing is far simpler if one considers that they simply need to be anywhere within the massive broad circulation which can be easily tracked on satellite days ahead. The reality is quite a bit different though. The objective is to also predict the point of landfall but specifically to predict and hopefully position oneself where the relative small eye will pass over. The difficulty here is that a hurricane chaser might need risk driving in tropical storm force winds in order to best position oneself to be where the eye will track. Unlike tornado chasers, hurricane chasing is all about being on the inside looking out. Storm surge and flying debris may be occuring all around you however the events unfolding around you are fairly predictable (so long as proper planning & decisions were made and one finds a safe location ahead of time or in that last moment).

I personally find tornado chasing to be potentially less predictable and with greater risk of exposure to flying debris or ones car being damaged or flipped. Still, that has got to be an exhilarating experience offering an altogether unique perspective!

[chaser1]

Not sure about exact size, but I'd imagine that the tornado chasing community is relatively a larger community than the hurricane chasing community. You remember the Discovery Channel show "Storm Chasers" that had Reed Timmer and Tim Samaras? And movies like Twisters and Into the Storm? Yup...all tornado-related. Not to mention, violent tornadoes can happen all around the central US. From Oklahoma to North Dakota to Alabama. And, they can happen in spring, as well as summer and winter. The bigger the danger zone and the more time possible to see one, the more attention it will attract.

While hurricanes can definitely be scary and destructive, unless you're in outer space, the general image of a hurricane is pretty much a big, mean storm that brings heavy rain, winds, and flooding. Tornadoes, however, can take on many forms and shapes, and I think for a person on the ground who wants to take photos, tornadoes can be more "picturesque" in that sense. Tornadoes are also more volatile and vigorous (when I say "vigorous," I mean that while there was only one Hurricane Patricia, there have been countless recorded tornadoes that had windspeeds that rivaled or exceeded 215 mph), and that really captures the chaser's psych and thrill.

I love tracking hurricanes. But I will admit that tornadoes are very interesting and mighty in their own right.

Tornado chasers aren't trying to get into the "eye" of a tornado, so to speak. Seems that would be a death sentence. Hurricane chasers can and do survive the eye of a hurricane.

It seems to be more about the pictures and getting them on social media for a tornado chaser. Maybe a few are trying to collect data somehow, but hurricane chasers seem more likely to be there collecting data. Sure, videos of the wind screaming and occasionally some flying debris, flood waters rising, stuff like that probably makes for good content. Getting that video of a tornado while keeping your distance from it is probably a lot easier to deal with. And as mentioned, you can get your tornado material, go home and upload it with no issues. Areas struck by hurricanes aren't as easy to get out of sometimes.

Then there's the fact that tornado chasers have the ability to chase basically year round usually in a general area of the same country. Sometimes you don't even have to travel to another state, or county for that matter. To chase a hurricane there's going to be some travel involved, sometimes to another country and there's going to be some waiting around and a lot of guesswork. Take this year for example. Not a single hurricane has made landfall anywhere in the Atlantic basin, but now we have Melissa. So that's one in just this part of the world in a year. So unless you're running off to the Philippines, or Japan, China, Australia, whatever, you've got this one shot here with Melissa.

So let's say you want to go after Melissa. You'd have to first figure out not only where she's going, which nobody knows right now, but what it's intensity is likely to be. I think it would suck to chase a cane and it ends up being just an 80 mph blow, especially if you have to travel abroad. And for Melissa you'll have to get on a plane to Jamaica, or Haiti or wherever, and hope you guess right. Then you've got to hope that wherever you hunker down can hold up. That's not always a sure thing in America, never mind a much less affluent country like say Haiti. Then afterwards you've got to hope you can get a flight out of there if there's not too much damage to the infrastructure.

So with all of that, I think it only makes sense there would be more tornado chasers than hurricane chasers. Anybody can get in a pickup truck with a 12 pack and chase a tornado for pics. Hunting down hurricanes takes a whole lot more effort and you get far fewer opportunities.

Very very well stated. Each of the complications you mentioned that apply to hurricane chasing are spot on

[storm_in_a_teacup]

I guess what made wonder about this is that Storm2K is like the only forum specifically for hurricane people that I know of, while there seems to be more for tornadoes? I might be wrong on this though. Like I came here basically because I googled "hurricane forums" and it's the first site that came up.

(I mentioned this before on this site but the reason I even googled was the alt text for this xkcd comic: https://xkcd.com/611/)