Tim Samaras Became a TV Star Driving Into Tornadoes; a Dallas Writer Explains What Happened Next

It's tornado season on the Great Plains, so throngs of storm chasers are once again about to spill onto the roads. Some of them are extreme-weather junkies, driving heedlessly into wind and rain in hopes of catching an Instagram-worthy twister. Others are more scientific — following storms cautiously, gathering data to try to crack the mystery of why severe storms develop as they do. But almost anyone who has ever intentionally piloted a vehicle towards a thunderstorm knows about Tim Samaras. A Colorado-based engineer, Samaras was best known as one of the stars of the reality-television show Storm Chasers, which aired on the Discovery Channel between 2007 and 2011. If there was a tornadic supercell anywhere on the Plains those years, Storm Chasers showed him either there or doing his best to get there as fast as he could.  Continue reading...