Stormchaser - Dangers

Dangers

There are inherent dangers involved in pursuing hazardous weather. These range from lightning, tornadoes, large hail, flooding, hazardous road conditions (rain or hail-covered roadways), animals on the roadway, downed power lines, reduced visibility from heavy rain (often wind blown), blowing dust, and hail fog. Most directly weather-related hazards such as from a tornado are minimized if the storm chaser is knowledgeable and cautious. In some situations, severe downburst winds may push automobiles around, especially high profile vehicles. Tornadoes affect a relatively small area and are predictable enough to be avoided if a safe distance is maintained. Lightning, however, is an unavoidable hazard. "Core punching", storm chaser slang for driving through a heavy precipitation core to intercept the area of interest within a storm, is recognized as hazardous due to reduced visibility and because many tornadoes are rain-wrapped. The "bear's cage" refers to the area under a rotating wall cloud, which is the "bear", and to the blinding precipitation (which can include window-shatteringly large hail) surrounding some or all sides of a tornado, which is the "cage". Similarly, chasing at night heightens risk due to darkness.

In reality, the most significant hazard is driving, which is made more dangerous by the severe weather. Adding still more to this hazard are the multiple distractions which can compete for a chaser's attention, such as driving, communicating with chase partners and others with a phone and/or radio, navigating, watching the sky, checking weather data, and shooting photos or video. Again here, prudence is key to minimizing the risk. Chasers ideally work to prevent the driver from multitasking either by chase partners covering the other aspects or by the driver pulling over to do these other things if he/she is chasing alone. Falling asleep while driving is a chase hazard, especially on long drives back. This also is exacerbated by nocturnal darkness and by the defatigating demands of driving through precipitation and on slick roads.