STORM CHASERS: Twistex Team Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young died in El Reno, OK tornado

timsamaras_twistexteam

I was an avid fan of Storm Chasers when it was on Discovery Channel so today’s news hits me particularly hard. Twistex Team’s Tim Samaras, Carl Young, and and Tim’s son Paul Samaras died in the El Reno, OK tornado this past Friday:

WEATHER CHANNEL – Renowned researcher and storm chaser Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras, and his chase partner Carl Young passed away after they were overtaken by the multiple-vortex tornado, which appeared to be in the midst of a sharp change in direction.

Tim Samaras, a native of Lakewood, Colo., holds the Guinness World Record for the greatest pressure drop ever measured inside a tornado. He designed, built, and deployed instrument probes to measure atmospheric variables such as pressure and wind in the path of tornadoes.

He deployed one of these in the path of an F4 tornado that destroyed the small town of Manchester, S.D., on June 24, 2003. This probe registered a world-record 100-millibar drop in pressure inside the twister.

Samaras ran a scientific field research program dubbed TWISTEX (Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes EXperiment). He also starred in the Discovery Channel series Storm Chasers.

Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras, and Carl Young will be missed. RIP.


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