Storm Chasers - Episode Guide

In the beginning of the show, the science team, led by Joshua Wurman, and the TIV team, led by IMAX filmmaker Sean Casey, is displayed and new technologies is explained. Sean explains how he has tried to gain an IMAX shot from inside a tornado for the past 8 years. As the chase season starts, the TIV attempts to intercept a supercell near Hereford, Texas, before hearing that an EF-2 rated tornado has hit Tulia, Texas. The TIV then tries to interecpt a tornado at night (without filming) and succeeds near Strafford, Kansas.
 

The Storm Chasing team are chasing again after a slow period in the 8-week tornado season. The team are chasing in the Texas Panhandle where a monster supercell threatens the TIV team as they try to intercept the cell. The team miss and chase into Kansas where a supercell explodes producing multiple tornadoes near Protection, Kansas. Once again, the team fail to intercept the storm.
 

As the team try and chase a cell near La Crosse, Kansas, they hear that an EF-5 tornado has struck the town of Greensburg, Kansas. This was the first tornado in 8 years to be given this rating. At the same time, the members of Tornadovideos.net manage to intercept a cell near Woodward, Oklahoma. Sean and Josh hear about this while in Hays, Kansas after a long and costly chase day.
 

In the final weeks of the season, Sean is desperate to get the shot he is trying to achieve. A tornado forms earlier than expected and nearly touches down near Woodward, Oklahoma. In the middle of the programme, the TIV breaks down and the team lose two valuble days chasing. On the last day of the season, all the teams are on the verge of defeat when a cell erupts near Nickerson, Kansas. The TIV manages a valuble intercept and gave Joshua Wurman vital data.
 

In the second season, Sean and Josh unveil new scientific equipment to try to get the perfect shot. Sean unleashes TIV 2. Josh unleashes DOW 6 and two new vehicles, Probe 1 and Probe 2. The members of Tornadovideos.net are joining the chase, although not working with Sean and Josh. As TIV 2, the DOW and all the probes are finished, Reed Timmer, Joel Taylor and Chris Chittick from Tornadovideos.net get chasing into Tornado Alley Texas and immediately get pounded by a hail storm. The TIV finally gets moving, and manages only 50 miles before the back axle of the TIV gets split. A supercell appears on radar and nearly gets intercepted by Josh Wurman and his probes while the TIV gets fixed.

The TIV's axle is still in two pieces but soon, the whole team is back in action. Reed and Joel (along with Reed's girlfriend Jene Young) intercept a supercell near Lamesa, Texas. The team (Tornadvideos.net) nearly get struck by lightning and nearly catch a violent tornado. The TIV, while chasing in Texas, near Amarillo, loses two of its ten tires. A stone gets caught in the brakes and TIV 2 is out of action again.

As the season continues, Reed meets up with Sean and Josh while chasing in Kansas. Josh tries to wait and get good data, but Sean is not happy with Josh's decisions. Sean takes TIV 2 for a spin as he (and Reed) try to intercept in Arkansas. Despite this, Sean cannot catch the Arkansas cells. Reed had driven throughout the night to intercept a supercell late in the day. Josh confronts Sean the next day after the break-up the night before. They revisit Greensburg, Kansas, after getting destroyed by the EF-5 last year.

Six problems with TIV 2 makes Sean abandon it. He decides to go back with the original TIV and it makes a heroic return. Reed chases just 20 miles away from a deadly tornado in England, Arkansas, while Stuttgart, Arkansas, gets destroyed as an EF-3 rips through. The science team and the TIV are trying to intercept the storm in Stuttgart. While chasing, Josh gets a disturbing call as a line of supercells forms just 50 miles from their overnight position. The science team is in Stuttgart when the tornado forms and the team is now being chased. The TIV intercepts the tornado, just after the DOW (Doppler on Wheels) crosses the path of the twister.

The DOW team is in crisis as the radar refuses to work. Justin Walker, the lead forecaster in the team, scoops the team up. Meanwhile, the scout team, led by Danny Cheresnick and Aaron Rupert, struggle to escape a ditch before a tornado forms and bears down on them. Josh tries to fix the DOW and only figures out what it is, too late in the day for any chasing.
 

The most anticipated day of the year has arrived. Josh and Sean find they are chasing in the same areas as Tornadovideos.net in western Kansas. The DOW and TIV find themselves in Quinter, Kansas, as a supercell produces multiple tornadoes. Reed intercepts a cell which produces an "Elephant Trunk" tornado. Both teams try to intercept a cell which nearly causes devastation to Greensburg, Kansas, once again. For once, no one wants to see the tornado touch down.
 

As both teams try to gain the perfect shot, Reed's girlfriend Jene Young gets lost in a hailstorm and nearly gets hit by a tornado. Meanwhile, the science team hands over to Karen Kosiba, a PhD student in the DOW, who tries to make the teams drive into a high-precipitation supercell to intercept a tornado.
 

It is the last week of the season. Both teams chase deep into Nebraska as a cell produces a tornado in Kearney, Nebraska. The TIV intercepts. While Sean is in a tornado, the Tornadovideos.net team chase a supercell in Kansas when they nearly get hit by a tornado, but deploy their high-definition probe into the tornado. The TIV has only one more opportunity to make the intercept. The chase is on.
 

The season begins with the TIV team and their Doghouse support vehicle, the TVN team in their SRV Dominator, and the Twistex Team. Reed and the TVN team have early success, nearly driving their new vehicle directly into an EF-1 tornado in Oklahoma. The TIV team, still chasing in TIV1, while waiting for the repairs/modifications on TIV2 to be completed, has a bad first day when communications and navigation problems cause them to miss a potential intercept.
 

Sean and Reed have a tense and awkward meeting at the New Mexico border. Sean, who was already annoyed at Reed's early success and general attitude, was further annoyed by Reed's new vehicle, the SRV Dominator, which he felt was a blatant attempt to copy his TIV idea. The Twistex team has a successful day, coming within a few hundred feet of an EF2 tornado. The TVN team enjoys slightly less success without their usual driver, Joel Taylor. The TIV team has another bad day, as communication problems once again cause them to miss a valuable intercept, and taking a muddy road causes both TIV1 and Doghouse to get stuck.
 

Reed steps up his science to take on Dr. Josh Wurman's massive research project. However, when his decision to mount a small radar on his vehicle threatens to interfere with Dr. Wurman's project, tensions between the two rise. TVN's driver Joel Taylor has second thoughts about chasing with the team, when his and Reed's relationship becomes strained. With his much improved TIV2 finally out of the shop, Sean is feeling confident and happy to rejoin his old chasing partner, Dr. Wurman and his new VORTEX2 project. However, when Dr. Wurman seem less than thrilled to see Sean, and makes it clear that getting TIV2 inside a tornado is no longer high on his list of priorities, Sean is somewhat offended, and decides to resume chasing alone with Doghouse, at least temporarily.
 

TIV2 suffers another mechanical failure, leaving Sean Casey on the sidelines. Joel Taylor decides not to chase with Reed and instead joins the SCOUT team of Danny Cheresnick and Aaron Ruppert on a chase in Oklahoma. However, on the same day, Reed and the TVN team become the first to record ground-level radar data from inside a tornado when their SRV Dominator is engulfed by a vortex near Kirksville, Missouri. Nearby, the TWISTEX team has close encounters with the same storm system.Also joining the TVN team is a guy named Hank Reinhardt.
 

Reed, Tim, and Sean encounter the strongest tornado conditions of the season. Two strong risk areas have developed over Colorado and in Northeast Kansas. All three teams decide to pursue the eastern event as it crosses from Kansas into Missouri. Each team's efforts to keep up with a developing supercell are hampered by road-clogging scores of amateur chase vehicles all trying to get a glimpse of the same storm but the storm did not form a tornado. Adding insult to injury, Tony is stunned to learn that a strong tornado has struck his and Tim's hometown of Bennett, Colorado (a result of the western storm system they had chosen to ignore that day). Frustrated and exhausted, TWISTEX decides to chase a low-risk event in Western Kansas the following day, and manages a successful intercept.
 

Reed and Sean chase in central Kansas, and successfully encounter a developing supercell. Sean is in perfect position to intercept, but both he and the Doghouse have difficulty finding the tornado as it becomes cloaked in precipitation. Reed relishes the opportunity to launch his $30,000 remote-control airplane, which successfully deploys three parachute probes into the tornado inflow, gathering vital data. However, Reed quickly finds himself in a vulnerable position when the tornado begins to take an erratic path and doubles back on itself (and the Dominator).
 

Sean returns chasing with his old chase partner, Dr. Josh Wurman and his new giant project, VORTEX2 and DOW7. In Wyoming, TIV2 intercepts an EF3 tornado, and Sean gets the shot of the tornado coming directly in his direction and impacting the TIV, the shot he chased by ten years. Meanwhile, Reed follows the same storm. He drives into hail storms and the Dominator temporarily gets stuck in the mud.
 

As the season comes to a close, Reed is left bloodied when a violent tornado shatters one of the Dominator's windows. Meanwhile, Tim's team has their own close encounter as they deploy probes in the last chase of the year. Having ended their chasing season in the previous episode, Sean Casey and his team are absent from this episode.
 

Reed and Joel bury the hatchet to face a new tornado season, but armor offers little protection when the roof blows off the new Dominator. Sean mixes up his crew and unleashes tension in the path of a West Texas twister. Team Dominator is the only team to drive all the way to Mississippi for tornadoes.
 

Reed, Joel and Chris are the first to arrive on the scene in Yazoo City, Mississippi, where a tornado has cut a path of destruction through the town. They temporarily give up the chase to aid the injured and search for survivors under the debris, risking their own lives to rescue those trapped.
 

As the storm chasers pursue the tornado outbreak of April 30 – May 2, 2010, dissent grows amongst Sean's crew as TIV2 continues to miss intercepts, and Byron Turk quits the team. Reed brings in his girlfriend, television meteorologist Ginger Zee, temporarily booting Chris out of his seat in the Dominator.
 

Dr. Josh Wurman of the VORTEX2 project is no longer allowed to provide guidance to the TIV2 team, leading Sean Casey to hand over more navigation control to his meteorologists. Under Matt Hughes' guidance, TIV2 intercepts one of its best tornadoes ever. This is the last episode to feature TIV2 navigator Matt Hughes who died on May 26, 2010 of an "injury unrelated to storm chasing". The episode is dedicated to him.
 

Sean, Reed, Tim, and the rest of the team must deal with the death of their team member, Matt Hughes. While they are grieving they must pick up the pieces, and finish the rest of the storm chasing season without Matt. Then, Sean fears for the future of his film after a chaser uploads a video showing TIV2 recklessly passing a string of slow-moving cars during a tornado, which could jeopardize funding from the VORTEX2 program. Reed grows restless as he misses a chase while the Dominator is fitted with probe cannons, and the TWISTEX team has a successful probe intercept.
 

When a massive storm cell threatens to strike South Dakota, the storm chasing teams travel the state's highways in hopes of witnessing powerful tornadoes, and their wish is granted when the storm spawns a series of twisters. Sean is devastated when Dr. Wurman recommends that TIV2 be sent home. Meanwhile, all three teams of storm chasers surround the slow moving EF4 Bowdle tornado as it demolishes farms and transmission towers.
 

Reed is so excited to use his new probe cannon that he has trouble perfecting his aim when he's confronted with a series of tornadoes. While he does succeed in getting a probe into a tornado, the tornado carries the probe too far and the team is unable to retrieve it. While Tim is away, the TWISTEX team weathers some strange atmospheric occurrences in South Dakota and gets pinned between two violent twisters but get out safely. Sean and Josh Wurman agree that TIV2 may continue operating, but only if it maintains a 75-mile distance from VORTEX2, which leads to frustration when both teams target the same storms with VORTEX2 actually switching storms to Sean's after taking one storm, forcing Sean's team to back off when they had a good chance at an intercept.
 

Storm and chasers collide in Minnesota for a final showdown. Sean's team gets a break as VORTEX2 calls off all operations for the day leading to no conflict between the teams. TIV2 breaks down early on, but luckily the garage they stop at has the part they need and it is repaired quickly. As a ferocious EF-4 twister targets the town of Wadena, Minnesota, one team finds themselves in the wrong place at the right time, and Sean's trial by fire becomes a race to save others. Dominator succeeds in intercepting the tornado and gets probes into it, but TIV2 fails to intercept while TWISTEX is too far away. Wadena is demolished and Sean's team is in the middle of town as it happens and in the aftermath both Sean's team and Tim's do their best to save lives.
 

This special features interviews and documentary footage with the show's production crew, explaining how they accompany the storm chasing teams and the difficulties they encounter working under intense conditions.It shows the main camera angles too.
 

This special is about the show.

April 27th, 2011 will go down as the deadliest tornado day in well over half a century. Hundreds of twisters are touching down all over parts of Mississippi and Alabama known to chasers as "Dixie Alley". There were multiple EF5 tornadoes, the most powerful classification. Teams Dominator, TWISTEX and TIV are all in Dixie Alley and on the hunt, with front row seats to some of the day's most breathtaking storms. Acting as storm spotters, they're reporting the tornadoes and attempting to get warnings out. But when a violent twister tracks toward the heart of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, all three teams are faced with death and destruction on an unimaginable scale. Chronologically occours between episodes 3 and 4 of season 5.
 

It's the most violent tornado season in over fifty years, with death and destruction savaging the Midwestern Plains before chase season has even begun. Now there's a powerful storm tracking toward downtown St. Louis, and after a hot start to the season, Reed Timmer has suddenly lost his mojo. A series of bad decisions leaves team Dominator out of position and at each other's throats. After completing an IMAX film that was ten years in the making, Sean Casey is using his armored TIV to film a sequel in 3D but first he needs to find the right storm. Tim Samaras and team TWISTEX follow the path of destruction into the St. Louis area, and in an attempt to place their probe in the path of a tornado they end up chasing too close.
 

After failing to find a twister on two consecutive chases, Reed Timmer and the Dominator team are desperate to chase one down. They're even desperate enough to pursue a powerful storm into an urban area after dark, one of the most dangerous possible chasing scenarios. Team TWISTEX's truck threatens to keep them on the sidelines on a promising tornado day. While team Dominator pursues an intercept, the TIV team is hoping to finally shoot their first ever 3D tornado footage... but tension in the vehicle has everyone on edge, and the crew is finding out that the only thing worse than having a chase ruined by the slick, Texas mud is to be helpless in the path of a tornado.
 

In the wake of the deadly and very large tornado outbreak (April 27, 2011), all three chase teams take time to help with the recovery effort. Team Tiv is in Smithville, Mississippi, and Team Dominator and Team Twistex are in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Motivated by the death and destruction they've witnessed, all three teams are rededicated to improving warning times and doing vital research on these deadly storms. Team Dominator fields a new, improved vehicle: the Dominator 2 and tracks a storm right toward one member's childhood home. Team TWISTEX outfits their truck with a brand new probe and a mobile Doppler radar, but mechanical issues threaten to sideline them again. Team TIV adds a mobile tornado siren and chases toward the heart of a twister to warn people while shooting 3D twister footage.
 

Team Dominator takes the day off, but when Team TIV scores a victory in Reed's own backyard, Reed vows to chase with a vengeance. Meanwhile, tensions within Team TWISTEX continues to rise as Tim grows more wary about his new equipment while chasing storms in Kansas.
 

A tornado outbreak in Elk City, Oklahoma, threatens to wreak havoc in team Dominator's backyard. The TIV team follows their navigator's bold prediction, with the success of their mission hanging in the balance. Tension over too much caution threatens to derail team TWISTEX's chase on a huge day.
 

Team Dominator risks everything to warn people in the path of a violent storm, but internal conflicts causes driver Joel to leave, complicating Team Dominator's operations. Still gun shy after witnessing devastation this season, Sean Casey starts to lack the passion of chasing storms, until a visit from his wife and a successful chase reignites Team TIV's fire. Team TWISTEX tries to brave the elements by chasing a tornado through a hail storm, but after their vehicles suffer damage, Tim has to swallow his pride and abandon the chase.
 

It's the last chase of the season, and Mother Nature is going out with a bang. Team Dominator's D2 is 100% ready the 1st time this season and they are chasing a monster tornado for a radar intercept. Team TWISTEX has one last chance to successfully deploy their probe while TIV still needs 3D footage from inside a twister. But how do you pick one that won't kill you?
 

Behind the scenes with cast and crew.

A one-hour Discovery Channel special documenting the 2011 Super Tornado Outbreak which struck the Southeastern United States from April 25–28.. Episode focused on video captured by Reed Timmer as well as the videos and experiences from non-storm chasers who survived the tornadoes.