Storm Chasing - History

History

The first recognized storm chaser is David Hoadley (1938– ), who began chasing North Dakota storms in 1956; systematically using data from area weather offices. He is widely considered the pioneer storm chaser and was the founder of Storm Track magazine.

Bringing research chasing to the forefront was Neil B. Ward (1914-1972) who in the 1950s and 1960s enlisted the help of Oklahoma Highway Patrol to study storms. His work pioneered modern storm spotting and made institutional chasing a reality.

In 1972, the University of Oklahoma in cooperation with the National Severe Storms Laboratory began the Tornado Intercept Project, with the first outing taking place on April 19 of that year. This was the first large-scale chase activity sponsored by an institution. It culminated in a brilliant success in 1973, with the Union City, Oklahoma tornado providing a foundation for tornado and supercell morphology. The project produced the first legion of veteran storm chasers, with Hoadley's Storm Track magazine bringing the community together in 1977.

Storm chasing then reached popular culture in three major spurts: in 1978 with the broadcast of a segment on the television program In Search of...; in 1985 with a documentary on the PBS series Nova; and in May 1996 with the theatrical release of Twister which provided an action-packed but distorted glimpse at the hobby. Further early exposure to storm chasing encouraging some in the weather community resulted from several articles beginning in the late 1970s in Weatherwise magazine.

Various television programs and increased coverage of severe weather by the media, especially since the initial video revolution in which VHS ownership became widespread, substantially elevated awareness of and interest in storm chasing. The advent of the Internet, in particular, contributed to a significant growth in number of storm chasers since the mid-late 1990s. A sharp increase in the general public impulsively wandering in their local area searching for tornadoes similarly is largely attributable to these factors. The 2007-2011 Discovery Channel reality series Storm Chasers produced another surge in activity.

From their advent in the 1970s until the mid-1990s, scientific field projects were occasionally conducted during spring in the Great Plains. Then, the first of the seminal VORTEX projects occurred in 1994-95 and this was soon followed by field experiments each spring, with another large project, VORTEX2, in 2009-10.