With only seconds to spare.

• Author: Samaras, Tim
• Position: Science & Technology - Essay

WE HEADED north on Highway 17 in western Alabama knowing that a destructive tornado was only a quarter-mile away and closing fast on us at 60 miles per hour. Eighty-foot trees lined the two-lane highway like a canyon providing no visibility of the monster. Noting the rotating clouds above us, I slammed on the brakes of my 6,000-pound research vehicle and, within seconds, the tornado crossed from west to east only 150 feet from our bumper. As Carl Young, Mali Gryzch, Thomas Peyton, and I sat there stunned by this force of nature, the violent funnel of ferocious wind raced east into the trees, uprooting them as if they were twigs. It was gone in seconds.

The date was April 27, 2011, and we were in the middle of one of the biggest tornado outbreaks in history. Over the next 30 hours, 359 tornadoes touched down, resulting in more than 1,000 miles of destruction and 322 deaths. We were trying to deploy scientific instruments in the paths of these twisters, but it was not going to happen on this day. It was way too dangerous.

"Chasing Tornadoes: A Tale of Science, Guts and Luck" was the cover story of the April 2004 issue of National Geographic, describing the hunt for nature's worst nightmare. This seems pretty accurate to me. Add in 40,000 miles of driving in 12 weeks, bad gas station food, lack of sleep, and a chance of getting killed by lightning every time you step out of your vehicle under a thunderstorm, and it pretty well sums it up.

Tornado research in the field needs dedication, perseverance, patience, and, most of all, luck. This is one of the final atmospheric research frontiers remaining. Scientists still are a bit uncertain as to why some thunderstorms spawn tornadoes and others do not. How strong are the winds of a tornado near the surface of the ground? There are theories, but no sure answers. Tornado research projects such as VORTEX 2 (Verification of the Origins of Rotation in Tornadoes Experiment 2), TWISTEX (Tactical Weather-Instrumented Sampling in/near Tornadoes/Thunderstorms Experiment), and others are trying to answer these questions. Scientists have been providing computer models of these powerful thunderstorms and tornadoes for years, but there is a need to validate these models and theories that seem to make sense on paper. In order to do so, we must go out into the field and collect measurements.

TWISTEX has been collecting observations in and near tornadoes associated with supercell thunderstorms for six years...