Have You Hugged A Tornado Lately?

Here’s something that has to make your heart race. Last week we wrote about tornado chaser Tim Samaras and his avid pursuit of tornado cells across the flatlands. Over the weekend we received two very impressive photos, up close and personal, captured in Campo, Colorado.

Tornadoes are one of the most feared forces in nature. Samaras and his team on the TWISTEX project are dedicated to researching these powerfully destructive winds in an effort to anticipate their movements and help save lives.

Winds of 110 miles per hour are typical, but velocities up to 300 miles per hour have been measured. The most familiar image of a tornado is a wedge or stovepipe about the width of a football field or two that reaches from cloud to earth, kicking up debris as it cuts its swath. But some tornadoes are as wide as a mile across and very destructive.

Because the TWISTEX Team does so much travelling during their two months of tornado chasing, they rely on the extended service life of AMSOIL synthetic motor oils and drive train fluids to reduce their downtime for maintenance and oil changes.

Not in Kansas Anymore: TWISTEX Field Operations Update

Tim Samaras of TWISTEX has been providing daily updates of his travels all over the plains in search of tornado activity. While some days are fruitless and turn up little or no results, they have been lucky to be in the right place at the right time recently. While on the road in Bowdle, South Dakota on May 22, they were able to deploy a new weather instrument in the path of a tornado and ended up encountering a violent twister that took down towers and caused heavy damage to several farm houses. On this day alone they watched 3+ tornadoes, making this one of the more successful days. Two days later on May 24, the crew encountered as many as 9 tornadoes near Bison, SD. The team attempted more deployments, but the results have not been evaluated yet.

The next leg of their mission started out in Denver on May 31st, with the TWISTEX team headed to Wichita while taking the long way through Colorado. It was a day of low expectations of nothing more than intercepting some hail, but their detour paid off. They managed to witness a very ‘photogenic’ tornado just south of Campo, CO that lasted about 15 minutes. With circulation persisting for 45+ minutes after that, they managed to encounter 2-3 more tornadoes as the supercell and tornado drifted SW into Oklahoma before calling it a day. These are the moments when all of the hard work pays off and keeps them moving onward to the next potential tornado hot spot.

At this rate, TWISTEX will have lots of footage and data to evaluate in the coming weeks. They are being covered by Discovery Channel’s hit show ‘Storm Chasers’ so watch for episodes featuring their expedition in the near future. AMSOIL is happy to give Tim & crew peace of mind that their convoy of AMSOIL-lubed vehicles has what it takes to complete this journey. We will be keeping up with them for the remainder of their mission and wish them success as they work to better understand tornado activity.

Taking on the Elements with AMSOIL

AMSOIL has signed on as one of the Sponsors of TWISTEX (Tactical Weather Instrumented Sampling in Tornadoes EXperiment), a project aimed at collecting storm data in field experiments. In a series of tests designed to better understand tornadoes and increase warning lead time, TWISTEX utilizes weather instruments and cameras to measure cause and effects of tornado activity.

Leading the way is Principal Investigator Tim Samaras, who is a speaker/lecturer for National Geographic in his field. In this mission he is joined by a team of scientists and students as they travel throughout the Midwest tracking the areas where tornado activity is most likely to occur. No small operation by any means, Samaras and team will have their expedition covered by the hit Discovery Channel TV show ‘Storm Chasers’. Their vehicle is also a feature display at the SEMA show, generating even more buzz for this exciting venture.

As this project gets underway over 30,000 miles will be covered in the span of 3 months. Rather than stop in the middle of a chase for vehicle maintenance, they liked the idea that AMSOIL can provide 25,000 miles of protection in one single oil change. In this field, plans switch with the wind direction and can be changed at a moment’s notice. Mechanical failures in the vehicles that get them to their destinations are not an option, which is how AMSOIL came to be the only lubricant they rely on. In the world of a storm chaser, every second counts and AMSOIL ensures not one second is lost on account of engine performance or excessive maintenance.

Tomorrow the TWISTEX team is heading to Kansas for a major encounter with Mother Nature. We'll keep you posted.