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(NUI) - For anyone who has lived in the Midwest along that band of states known as "Tornado Alley," hearing news reports of a tornado and the ominous wail of warning sirens means that you head for the basement and safety until the storm passes.
For Tim Samaras, on the other hand, those reports mean that it's time to go to work. A tornado chaser based in Littleton, Colo., Samaras actively seeks out tornados, hoping to learn more about how they work, how to anticipate them and how to increase the likelihood that people in a tornado's path can be warned in time to reach safety. To do so, he uses cutting-edge sensor probes and a TracVision in-motion satellite TV antenna from KVH Industries mounted atop his chase vehicle.
"When pursuing a potential or active tornado, we must have up-to-the-minute information about the storm's track and activity," Samaras said. "However, when you are in the middle of Cherry County, Neb., the largest county in the country, you can't rely on a cell phone to keep you connected to base and weather reports.
"Instead, I depend on TracVision to keep me connected to The Weather Channel and its tornado coverage. TracVision has become invaluable to discovering where the tornados are."
Samaras, the senior research engineer at Applied Research Associates, and his colleagues recently achieved a breakthrough in the science of tornado study with the development and successful deployment of sensor probes designed to study a tornado as it passes overhead.
However, even with this technology, tornado chasers can be surprised by a tornado and find themselves in harm's way.
"During the intercept of the Happy, Texas, tornado on the night of Sunday, May 5, 2002, the tornado turned unexpectedly, and we were subjected to winds exceeding 120 miles per hour," Samaras said. "Power poles and irrigation pipes were flying around. Three of the windows in the vehicle imploded, and the vehicle began to fill with debris. Even through all of that, the TracVision mounted on the roof survived perfectly and remained fully operational."
For more information about the TracVision line of satellite TV antennas, visit www.kvh .com.