Into the Storm

When I was young, I was scared of storms, in particular, thunderstorms. Especially those that came through at night. In those Saturday afternoon horror movies I consumed, storms usually heralded something bad, lurking in the shadows, the monsters presence revealed in the flashes of lightning across the bedroom wall.

In adulthood, storms had a lesser effect on me, that is, unless I was caught out in them. Hail, high winds, heavy rains, but especially, snowstorms, Thundersnow however, was the coolest thing I had experienced, whiteout or no whiteout. The booming of thunder and the flash of lightning in near-whiteout conditions is truly something to experience - from the comfort of an armchair. At the time, I lived and worked in an area of Southwestern Ontario, along the "lee" of Lake Huron (as the CKNX Meteorologist on TV would cheerfully point out on the evening news). It was nothing for the local highways to periodically close, with near-zero visibility, in the "firehose" of snow streamers coming off an open lake each winter. Farm kids would be billeted in town and the grocery selection at the local mini-mart would get a little thin, but we got through this, collectively. In our small town of 600, we were like extended family when we would get "snow stayed" for days on end, the only traffic being the clamber of snow plows working hard to keep up to accumulations. Getting caught in hazardous driving conditions with your best guess at where the road is terrifying. In the early 90's, a bad accident on an icy country sideroad sealed the deal. A new fear (or was it stress?) unlocked. Bare, dry, winter roads made for a beautiful country drive, but days where bad weather was forecast were days to stay in, the woodstove fired up, a good book in hand.

In 1996, a movie was released, I'm sure many of you reading this will know where I'm headed here.

Twister arrived in movie theatres that summer, and like many storm chasers in modern social media communities, I was hooked. Poll a group of chasers these days, and Twister will often factor into their stormchasing origin story. Of course, I was already stargazing at celestial events including the Hale-Bopp Comet and the emerald light cast by auroras on my local dark sky night adventures, but this new appreciation of the power of Mother Nature was fascinating. That said, I can remember setting up the surround-sound system in the living room. The first movie I played? Twister, of course. VHS. Cranked up. That THX start-up intro had nothing on the sound of the tornado in the opening minutes of the film, racing from speaker to speaker to subwoofer.

Fast forward nearly a decade, in the mid-2000's I was working in the Southeastern United States as a Horticulturist/Scientific Technician, with an interest in hurricanes and urban tree canopy impacts. Looking back, one of my bigger regrets of that time was not consistently documenting weather with my point-and-shoot Sony camera. Chasing weather took a distant backseat to work, and simply getting by. .

Then I moved to Middle Tennessee.

Specifically, Nashville. And Tuesday, February 5, 2008?

The 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak.

I'd heard plenty about the April 1998 tornado, which impacted Nashville with a rain-wrapped F3 tornado (later to be assigned an EF2 ranking on the enhanced Fujita scale), tearing up a significant part of East Nashville and damaging approximately 300 homes. Nashville sits in an area of the United States which sees a fair amount of severe weather, as part of "Dixie Alley".

That Tuesday night in 2008, I was watching the NHL's Nashville Predators take on the Carolina Hurricanes, from my seat in the 300's, the upper bowl of our local arena, the Sommet Center. Severe weather was in the forecast that day, and during the evenings game, a supercell passed through Davidson County and downtown Nashville. With cold air downbursts, circulation in the supercell remained high overhead, but the storm created a flurry of activity in the arena. The jumbotron flipped from the game highlights to the bright red of Doppler Radar, showing us what was happening in real time outside. We were initially instructed to remain seated, then were moved to the lower concourse and tunnel connecting the arena to a local hotel across Broadway. With security keeping people from the glass wall of the exits, we waited out the storm until the all-clear was given, and fans were allowed to exit. The sirens were blaring, and the winds blowing up the cross streets were strong, but as I drove up Ellington Parkway enroute to Hendersonville, debris was everywhere. Having passed over downtown, the supercell cycled into an EF3 tornado, impacting Sumner County and Castalian Springs, Tennessee. Seeing the impact of severe weather on a local level stuck with me, and even now, I follow severe weather closely in my old haunts - where a number of tornadoes have since tracked.

Moving back to Southwestern Ontario, Canada, I picked up my dslr, and began documenting weather, specifically thunderstorms. My passion for photographing weather has evolved into a large collection of images, and many great conversations with friends across Canada and the United States, storm chasing our common bond. Scroll down for a gallery of photographs taken by a family member of the damage incurred in downtown Sarnia, Ontario on May 21st, 1953, from an F3 tornado.

If storms and weather interest you, I highly recommend Girls Who Chase, a US-based organization that promotes STEM studies, and offers a variety of educational opportunities for enthusiasts, delivered by industry professionals and educators. Annual spring training offers a variety of workshops - chasing safely, understanding forecasting, photography tips, and more, delivered online. What a great way to spend a day in virtual weather bootcamp. I've included a link below.

And, of course, "Twisters" was on my must-see list this past July. One of the more poignant of scenes came in the third act of the movie. The scene takes place in a movie theatre, the destruction of the town beyond framed by the blown-out wall where the screen had once been. Hauntingly inspired by an image taken after the December 2021 tornado that struck Mayfield, Kentucky, by photographer Shawn Triplett @thedudeknows on Twitter.

"I'm not sure exactly why I chase storms. Perhaps it's to witness the incredible beauty of what Mother Nature can create." - Tim Samaras

(above) With spray ring apparent, this storm passed me by at Bright's Grove, Ontario, making landfall as an EF0 QLCS (Quasi-linear convective system) or squall line. Screenshot from a Twitter post providing further detail on the photo set I posted after the storm. Dave Sills is part the of The Northern Tornadoes Project (or NTP) at Western University, London, Ontario.

Sarnia, Ontario. May 21st, 1953.