Reed Timmer is nervous.
As a star of Discovery Channel’s “Storm Chasers” TV show, this man has captured over 200 tornadoes on film and driven a specially made vehicle into twisters.
Yet, somehow standing in a room on the second floor of the National Weather Center scares him more than all of those things. It isn’t just any room in the Weather Center though, the room is bustling with people. Behind him are 10 TV and computer monitors with radars and in front of him are two television cameras transmitting footage to 30,000 elementary school children.
Timmer was the host of a special type of classroom experience broadcast by Discovery Education to classrooms across the state of Texas. He took elementary and middle school students on a tour of the National Weather Center while teaching them about tornado safety and sharing his experiences as a storm chaser.
Aided by meteorologists Daphne Thompson, Angelyn Kolodziej and Kevin Kloesel, Atmospheric and Geographic Science College Associate Dean and newly appointed head of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, Timmer took questions from kids and showed pre-recorded video clips of different parts of the Weather Center along with clips from his Discovery Channel show.
Safety and preparation were the main themes of the program with Timmer and Kloesel stressing preparation repeatedly. Kloesel even wore a bike helmet for one segment to model proper safety equipment during a severe storm.
“We were all nervous. We’ve got an audience of 30,000 elementary school students on the other end,” Kloesel said. “And we know that anything we say, they are looking for us for the right information the first time. So we know that something we say might stick with them and that is the difference between them doing the right thing and the wrong thing.”
This is an important subject to Kloesel and all involved at the Weather Center. They have been preparing for this show for around two months, but the idea of tornado safety and preparation has been on their minds much longer. Kloesel stated that the impetus for this program and most of what has been done at the Weather Center over the last decade is a result of the May 3, 1999 tornado outbreak and the 1997 Jarrell, Texas tornado outbreak.
“Those two tornado events in these parts were really the catalyst for the research and the mobile operations and that this is legit and we gotta pay attention to it and we are going to invest money in it because it was important to do,” Kloesel said.
Timmer began storm chasing as an OU freshman during the May 3, 1999 tornado outbreak.
“We learned how to storm chase the wrong way. It’s the only F5 I’ve ever seen in 13 years of storm chasing. We could have easily been killed by that tornado,” Timmer said. “I think it’s important for people that want to get into storm chasing to go with a professional, go with someone that knows what they are doing.”
While Timmer was leading students on a virtual tour of the Weather Center, the students were taking him on a virtual tour of Texas.
Four of the classrooms in Texas were able to talk back to Timmer and the crew. Schools from Shamrock in the Panhandle to Victoria by the Gulf of Mexico asked them questions. These classrooms engaged the meteorologist in some question and answer segments.
Questions ranged from inquiries about the “Storm Chasers” show to theoretical questions about the combining of hurricanes and tornadoes.
Timmer is working on his doctorate in meteorology at OU and has certain TV responsibilities during the spring. From early April to late June he will be shoot the newest season of “Storm Chasers” while defending his dissertation in the back of the Dominator — his specially constructed storm chasing vehicle.
Timmer makes a living trying to learn something about the atmosphere every time he goes out, but he knows that he is one of a select group of people that should be doing what he is doing.
“It’s very important that people don’t try do what we are doing on Discovery Channel “Storm Chasers”,” Timmer said. “It’s very dangerous to storm chase if you don’t know what you are doing.”
