Brendan Carty 6/4/13
Earth Science/ C Block Ms. Davies
"Former
'Storm Chasers' Stars Die Tracking Okla. Tornadoes Friday." Fond Du Lac
Reporter. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 June 2013.
It is a sad time in the Earth Science and meteorology
community as beloved storm chasing legend Tim Samaras died in last week’s EF3
tornado that touched down in El Reno, Oklahoma. Samaras became trapped in his
storm chasing van along with his son Paul and colleague Carl Young when the
tornado took a sharp turn towards them with wind speeds up to a hundred
sixty-five miles per hour. "This is a very sad
day for the meteorological community and the families of our friends lost. Tim
Samaras was a pioneer and great man," Weather Channel meteorologist Jim
Cantore tweeted Sunday. The
Samaras’s and Young were three of the thirteen people who were killed in the
Oklahoma storms. Tim Samaras was known
for being a true lover of storms and meteorology in general. His love for storm chasing started at a very
early age when he first watched “The Wizard of Oz”. The tornado scene in the beginning of the
classic film fascinated Young Tim Samaras.
He would grow up to get his very own show called, “Storm Chasers” that
aired on The Discovery Channel. The
death of Samaras and his team shocked the science community, as Tim was known
for being extremely precautious and professional in his pursuit for dangerous
storms. He was an educator before
anything else. "He looked at
tornadoes not for the spotlight of TV but for the scientific aspect," Jim
Samaras said. "At the end of the day, he wanted to save lives and he gave
the ultimate sacrifice for that."
It is a sacrifice that must be appreciated at a more public level.
This article is so important because we lost a true
Earth Science legend this week. Tim
Samaras and his team devoted their lives to chasing storms in order to gather
more information about how to predict them.
Samaras regularly presented at conferences dedicated to advances in
meteorology and how to more accurately track storms. "We still don't know
why some thunderstorms create tornadoes while others don't," he stated.
"We're trying to collect as many observations as possible, both from
outside and from the inside. If we better understood some of the final
mechanisms for tornado genesis, our forecasting will be greatly improved."
It is important for people to realize that there are people out there still
trying to educate themselves and others about the world around us. Tim Samaras, Paul Samaras, and Carl Young are
just three of these noble people who fill our Earth Science textbooks with
field data. Without them, more people
would die in large scale storms like tornadoes and hurricanes. Its also important for people to realize that
science is not all done in the lab with a lab coat on. Sometimes you need to get your hands
dirty. Fields such as storm chasers and
volcanologists put there lives in danger to discover the unknown.
This article was very good and served as one of the
many tributes to Tim Samaras and his crew.
A minor critique of the article would have been to talk a little more
about the Oklahoma tornados that ended their lives. We also are not sure what caused their deaths,
but their equipment including all their cameras were not recovered, so there is
a search still out to find the cameras that might give insight on the
circumstances involved. Other and that, the article was very informative and a
great way to compliment a great man’s life and accomplishments.
R.I.P. Tim Samaras.
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