NORMAN, Okla. - In a hotel lobby in the heart of Tornado Alley, four men watched radar images scroll across a computer screen. The angry red and yellow storm swirls were headed their way. It looked very promising.

Already, they were under a tornado watch. And the nation's Storm Prediction Center, just a few miles away, put out a severe weather statement: "THIS IS A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION . . . DESTRUCTIVE TORNADOES . . . LARGE HAIL TO 2 INCHES IN DIAMETER . . . THUNDERSTORM WIND GUSTS TO 90 MPH . . ."

Justin Turcotte, 26, who studies meteorology at the University of Nebraska, stuck some sunflower seeds in his cheek. He peered at the computer.

"We've got 90 minutes to do it. Otherwise, we're going to miss it," Turcotte said.

The chase was on.

In the coming months, as tornado season heats up and twisters drop from the sky destroying homes and lives, chasers will be following close behind. And there is no better place in the world to chase than Tornado Alley, a 10-state region centered on Oklahoma and Texas that includes Missouri and Illinois.

This was Tornado Alley's first severe thunderstorm this year. It couldn't have come at a better time. It was the first day of the National Severe Weather Workshop in Norman, the U.S. tornado research capital. More than 300 meteorologists, emergency managers and weather junkies were in town recently for the event. But once word of the tornado watch broke, many ditched the meetings and headed for their cars.

Oklahoma hadn't seen a tornado in nearly 300 days - a remarkable twister drought. The last one touched down in May, the month when "all hell broke loose" across the country, said prediction center director Joe Schaefer.

May 2003. Five hundred sixteen tornadoes. It was a modern-era record for twisters in a month. And two states set records of their own: Illinois suffered 74 twisters, the most of any state, plus two deaths. Missouri was No. 2 with 71, including tornadoes that tore apart Stockton and Pierce City and killed 19 people.

Turcotte grabbed the keys to his friend Adam Prenzlow's Dodge Stratus. Turcotte was the best storm driver of a group that included Prenzlow and another Nebraska meteorological student, James McCormick. They all chased together last year.

"Jo, there's no time!" Turcotte yelled into the air. He was quoting the 1996 blockbuster movie "Twister" about storm-chasing scientists. The film turned the obscure world of storm chasing into a cultural touchstone. Some credit Helen Hunt's role as Jo for getting more women interested in science. Now you can go on guided chase tours that are like safaris for severe weather. It has reached the point out here that traffic jams erupt as people race to see nature's most terrifying spectacle.

Also chasing this day was a black Ford F-150 with "Storm Tracker 9" splashed across the doors and a mobile weather station on the roof. The truck belongs to an Oklahoma City TV station. All the stations chase here. When people see the TV chase trucks pull into town, they tend to get nervous. They know a tornado is not far behind.

"Rabbit is good. Rabbit is wise," Turcotte said in another cryptic "Twister" reference as they sped down the interstate to get into position under a pale sky.

Turcotte steered with one hand and worked on a digital camera with the other. Prenzlow, 22, was in the passenger seat, keeping an eye on the clouds. McCormick, 22, sat quietly behind him, holding a road map. Next to McCormick sat a reporter and Terence Davidson, 28, a computer technician from Toledo, Ohio. Davidson met the three Nebraska students in the hotel lobby. He asked to tag along. Not many chase opportunities in Toledo.

Davidson was decked out. He wore a "Skywarn Spotter" ball cap pulled low on his head and matching T-shirt. On his legs rested a laptop computer running a map program hooked up to a tiny global positioning system device. He held a portable weather station in one hand, a weather band radio in the other.

"I want to hear, 'NAAA! NAAA!'" Turcotte said, imitating the warning signal that precedes severe weather statements.

As they passed cars and rolling green hills, McCormick grew introspective about storm chasing. Some think it's crazy. You head straight for what others would just as soon avoid. But if you love weather, you have to see it in action. It's ironic that most meteorologists spend their careers in windowless rooms looking at computer-generated images of what's happening outside.

"I think we can all see the days of working in an office," said McCormick, who intends to work for the weather service one day.

The goal is to get close but not caught in the storm - what is called "core-punching." McCormick stressed the need to be safe and alert. But the allure of severe weather - its unpredictability - is what makes it so dangerous.

Some chasers such as Davidson like to feed off the latest mobile technology to give them an edge. McCormick and his two friends prefer to use what they've learned in weather classes, teasing truths from the colors and shapes in the sky. But they're not above using the car's AM/FM radio for weather updates.

Choppy, low-level clouds hung in the distance. A drizzle began to beat down on the car. Not a good sign. Rain in front of a storm helps stabilize the atmosphere.

Nothing to do but drive on and hope and talk about the weather. They talked about the discovery in Nebraska last year of the United States' largest-ever hailstone - a cantaloupe-sized ball of ice. And they talked about the 1896 cyclone that hit St. Louis and East St. Louis, killing 255 people. "Doswell rates the St. Louis tornado of the 1890s as the worst-ever," Turcotte said, referring to legendary researcher and storm chaser Chuck Doswell, who, of course, lives in Norman.

They drove under a highway overpass, and talk turned to the infamous footage of a TV crew riding out a tornado under a Kansas Turnpike overpass in 1991. "Don't do it," Prenzlow said. Winds actually pick up going under a bridge. People have been decapitated. The weather service has been trying for years to undo the "get under the girders" advice, McCormick said.

The weather radio came to life. "Shhh!" Turcotte said, turning down a Phil Collins tune on the car radio. The weather radio chirped a tornado warning, but the county names washed away in static. Disappointment.

The warning started over.

"OK, here it is," McCormick said.

The radio: "The National Weather Service in Norman has issued a tornado warning for Comanche County."

McCormick scanned his map. The county was just to the west. The storm was barreling toward them.

"Guys, we're golden," he said. "We're golden."

A tornado warning means take cover. Now. It means a twister has been spotted or radar shows a thunderstorm spinning as if it's going to spawn one. A tornado touches down 79 percent of the time after the National Weather Service issues a warning.

But the crucial part of a tornado warning is lead time - the weather service wants to get the warnings out early enough to save lives. Last year, the average lead time for tornadoes was 13 minutes. It might not seem like very long, but it's one minute better than the agency goal and a huge improvement over historical lead times.

Lead times soared to 19 minutes during the worst of the outbreak in May, when 313 tornadoes hit and 39 people died May 4-10. The twisters were coming so fast that meteorologists in local weather offices wore themselves out. Some weather offices took to calling unorthodox "tornado emergencies" to reinforce the situation's danger.

Compare that with the April 1974 Super Outbreak, the single heaviest 24-hour period for tornadoes, when 148 twisters hit and 330 people died. Back then, lead times were only about five minutes.

"Look at those numbers," weather service southern regional director Bill Proenza said at the workshop, standing before a chart comparing the two events. He noted the marked disparity between tornadoes and fatalities.

But Proenza warned that lead times are likely to flatten out in coming years. Jumps in warning times - due to the creation of local weather offices and the widespread use of Doppler radar beginning in the early 1990s - will be harder to earn.

Even with advanced radar, tornadoes remain hard to predict. They can still pack a nasty surprise, something Turcotte and the others try to keep in mind.

"This is where we want to be, guys," McCormick said, looking at his map. "I just wish it was a little clearer."

They'd driven about 80 miles southwest to Duncan, a town at the bottom of the pot-shaped state. A giant flag outside a bank whipped hard to the east - a good sign of low-level wind shear because high-level winds in this region tend to blow southwest. Rows of sparkly banners at a used car lot appeared ready to rip from their tethers. The weather began to turn.

Light inside the car sucked away. A wall of blinding rain fell down around them. The wind sped up. The narrow two-lane road disappeared. Brake lights shot dimly from the rain. Unwittingly, they'd punched the core.

"Get ready, guys!" Turcotte said, gripping the steering wheel. "We're about to get our asses kicked!" The windshield looked like it was wrapped in a white vinyl sheet. Turcotte slowed from about 60 mph to 30, to 25, to 10 and finally a slow putter. Turcotte strained to stay on the road.

The storm battered them.

"Oh, my God," one of the men said. "This is bad."

An ominous gray cloud loomed to the right. It could be just a severe thunderstorm. Or a tornado. They were discussing the cloud when a flash popped.

"What was that? Lightning?" Prenzlow exclaimed.

"It was my flash," Turcotte said, holding his camera with one hand.

They turned back to the cloud.

"I think it is rotating right here," Prenzlow said.

"Yeah, this is not good," one of them said.

In the back, McCormick, his blue dress shirt tucked neatly into his khakis, was calm.

"This is the fun part," he said.

The rain relented suddenly, but with the storm still near, they voted to pull into a gas station. A customer and a station worker stood under an awning watching a scary mass of clouds scud from right to left a couple miles away. The worker wondered aloud where she would hide if a tornado hit. The customer suggested the walk-in coolers.

The three men from Nebraska and the fellow from Toledo stood outside and watched the weather, cameras clicking away. The cloud was faint gray and enormous, like an oversized blimp filling the sky. A portion of the cloud extended down from the main body. Their eyes and cameras fixed on this drooping area.

The storm moved at 60 mph across the sky, passing out of the area. The men got back in the car.

"That was some intense stuff," Turcotte said.

"Oh yeah," Prenzlow said, pausing to take a long look out the window.

Twenty-five tornadoes were reported that day. The weather service had reports of winds up to 91 mph, golf ball-sized hail, one injury and no deaths.

But no tornadoes for Turcotte and the others. It's the life of a chaser - most runs fail to produce a twister sighting. Still, on the drive back to Norman, they saw a snapped utility pole and a metal shed exploded by straight-line winds. They stopped to make sure no one was hurt.

They were tired after their close call. There was no chance now of catching up with the weather.

"I'm done," Turcotte said.

"Me, too. Worn out," Prenzlow said.

They'd chased for four hours.

No luck on this day. But they knew tornado season was just beginning.

Reporter Todd C. Frankel
E-mail: tfrankel@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8110

This article was posted on this site with permission from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.