George Kourounis - Storm Chasing

Storm Chasing

Kourounis has been a storm chaser since 1997 and documents all forms of severe weather including tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, floods, hail and lightning.

In January 2005, George brought his camera to the remote Danakil Depression in the harsh Ethiopian desert and was lowered 60 feet into the smoking crater of the active Erta Ale volcano. He spent a half hour filming on top of the freshly hardened surface of the lava lake wearing a protective heat suit.

This made him the first person to have ever filmed from the inside of three of the world’s most fearsome forces – a tornado, the eye of a hurricane, and an active volcano. He was able to intercept all four of the major U.S. land falling hurricanes in 2005, including devastating Hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, Mississippi. While he filmed the storm, the city around him was disintegrating in the incredible winds.

Some of his other accomplishments include documenting mountain gorillas in Rwanda, climbing Mount Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and documenting numerous destructive tornadoes across the United States. He has also filmed forest fires, floods, lightning, and great white sharks. In 2006, he and his wife Michelle were married on the crater’s edge of the erupting Yasur volcano on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu. The ceremony was documented for his television series Angry Planet.