By Josh Hayter
Reed Timmer shares his passion for stormy weather during lecture
The sky is black and the air is hot. Clouds spin and a funnel begins to form. What once was a light breeze becomes a fierce wind as a tornado spirals down to the ground.
While sirens wail and families hunker down in storm shelters, Reed Timmer stands fearlessly on a back-country road, camera in hand, capturing the raging force in all its fury as it rumbles across the plains.
Call it obsession.
Call it passion.
Intercepting extreme storms with reckless abandon brings him satisfaction.
Timmer is a meteorologist and professional storm chaser who stars in the American documentary reality television series Storm Chasers. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in meteorology in 2002, a master’s in 2005, and received his Ph.D. in meteorology in 2011.
He spoke in Akin Auditorium Tuesday night at the first Artist-Lecture Series of the semester.
Timmer has devoted his life to researching weather and how it affects our lives.
The 2011 tornado season was one of the most active recorded in U.S. history, Timmer said. There were 900 tornadoes in April 2011. Over 100 tornadoes occurred from Arkansas to Georgia on April 15 alone.
“Not only where there a lot of tornadoes, but they were very violent and unfortunately they were moving over very populated areas,” he said. “It’s such a helpless feeling when you have a powerful tornado above the ground heading at 70 miles per hour toward a very populated area with no atmospheric indication that it’s going to slow down at all.”
Over 500 people lost their lives to the tornadoes of 2011.
“Most people heard the sirens and knew there was a tornado warning,” Timmer said, “But a lot of those people didn’t heed the warning and just thought it would be another weak tornado that would miss their house or wouldn’t happen at all.”
Storm chasers and meteorologists help in three ways, Timmer said.
They call in reports of tornadoes, hail and strong winds, they’re there to help soon after the storm and they do research and gather data in order to save lives in the future.
Next in the Artist-Lecture Series is Collins Tuohy on Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. in Akin Auditorium.
