The Garden City Telegram
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Tornado leads team of TV storm chasers through area
Published 11/21/2009 in Local News
By MONICA SPRINGER
The storm that they were chasing looked promising, a storm chaser and videographer for Storm Chasers, a television show that airs on the Discovery Channel, said of a storm that eventually "turned into a beast."
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Chris Chittick, left, and a fellow storm chaser help deploy a probe on a recent storm chasing expedition.
Chris Chittick and a team of meteorologists were chasing a storm on June 15 that led them through Johnson City, he said. The group stopped at a gas station to look at weather data on a computer and fill up on fuel.
The episode will air Sunday on the Discovery Channel.
After the group stopped in Johnson City, a storm finally produced a tornado right around Macksville, Chittick said.
The storm chasers flew a remote controlled plane, with a 12-foot wing span carrying scientific probes and GPS locators, into the tornado.
Chittick said the remote controlled plane dropped the scientific instruments at 400 feet, and the instruments shot up to 4,000 feet and the tornado carried it for eight miles.
"Every tornado is different. Every tornado is its own beast," Chittick said.
Storm Chasers started a new season in October. Chittick said this season the team chases tornadoes in Kansas, New Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois.
"We've been all over the place," Chittick said. "We travel wherever weather takes us."
Chittick said the group of storm chasers chase other weather phenomenons beside tornadoes. Chittick said he wants to chase and video monsoons, typhoons, and this winter he will travel to Argentina to chase tornadoes there.
Chittick grew up in Michigan and was afraid of bad weather as a child. That fear turned into curiosity, he said, and he chased his first tornado in 2000.
"We're out there for adrenaline," Chittick said. "But we're also out there to understand science, and what kind of damage weather can do."
Chittick said the data the team collects can ultimately help people get advanced warning for a storm -- maybe 10 or 20 minutes that people can use to take cover.
The data can also help construction crews build houses that can withstand high winds.
Chittick said his most memorable tornado came just a couple days after the Macksville tornado in June.
The tornado damaged the car the team was driving, and pieces of the car window hit Chittick in the ear and Reed Timmer, a meteorologist, in the eye.
A medic that travels with the team sewed Chittick back up, he said.
"In the back of my head I was like, 'What the hell am I doing here?'"
The team usually chases storms three months out of the year, and out of those three months Chittick said the group is either in Kansas chasing storms or driving through the state for about three weeks.
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