When Environment Canada issued a tornado warning for this region on June 1, it was local storm chaser David Patrick on the ground providing the heads up about the unexpected twister.
Patrick, a Fergus resident, was looking at some computer models and satellite images of area weather and talking to a couple of other storm chasers at about 6:30pm that evening when he decided a chance, albeit a slight one, existed to witness a major weather phenomenon.
He took off for the Palmerston area, where his research had indicated tornado formation was possible.
When he got there, he discovered “a lot of cloud movement, but not much was really going on.” He decided to head home when a hunch sent him travelling towards the Kenilworth area, where he suddenly saw the back of the storm up-drafting.
“A thunderstorm that creates tornadoes and huge hail, they really have a definition of their own,” explains Patrick.
“The whole storm was kind of ragged and then all of a sudden it just tightened up and that means that all the energy is condensing in the area. Then it started to create what’s called a wall cloud. That formed, and I said, ‘Okay I’m going to call the government.’”
Patrick is part of CANWARN, a network of volunteer ham radio operators and storm chasers who receive specialized training from the federal government and are authorized to contact Environment Canada when they sees unusual weather activity. There are about 5,300 CANWARN volunteers in Ontario and over 60,000 across the country.
The meteorologist who took Patrick’s call that evening was skeptical when he said he was looking at a rotating thunderstorm with a wall cloud, because there was little rain and “not even lightning anywhere.”
A few minutes later, Patrick called back and said, “I think you’ve got to issue something on this. You gotta issue a tornado warning.”
When Patrick told the meteorologist, “I got a funnel crowd forming right on top of me,” the warning was issued “almost instantaneously.”
Patrick followed the tornado until it dissipated, watching it touch down twice in a wooded area at around 8:15pm.
While the touchdowns generated only a “couple of bursts of dirt,” the tornado would have caused considerable damage in a populated area.
“It would rip a roof off, knock some trees down. I mean it wasn’t strong, but that’s deceiving too. I’ve seen little baby tornadoes like this just tear things apart.”
In addition to calling in the tornado warning, Patrick tweeted the storm and streamed live video to his website. Afterward, he provided Environment Canada with copies of his material for verification and study purposes.
Catching an unexpected tornado like the Kenilworth storm was a coup acknowledged by Patrick’s peers.
“No thunder – no lighting – like six drops of rain … that was a really big rarity. A lot of people said, ‘I don’t know how you caught that.’”
Patrick, who was born in Saskatchewan, moved to Ontario in the 1970s and has lived in Fergus since 1995, where he operates his own business installing flooring for food processing plants.
“That’s my day job,” he said, noting storm chasing, while serious business, is just a hobby for all but a few.
“There are a few professional storm chasers who make money at it, but most of the time it is strictly a passion and a hobby. As far as return on investment, it’s probably one of the worst out there.”
Ironically enough, Patrick became interested in storm chasing after actually being chased by one while on a two-week road trip in the United States about 20 years ago.
He was on his way to visit Mount Rushmore when, “a tornado touched down in front of me. “I had absolutely no clue it was coming. I didn’t even have camera with me that was working,” he recalls.
The following day, he had another close encounter.
“I was driving down the highway and a transport truck flew by me – must have been doing 80 miles an hour – and then two cop cars with their lights on flew by me and I looked in my rearview and there was a tornado behind me.”
Upon returning home, Patrick headed to the library to find as much information as he could about tornadoes and other weather phenomena.
“The internet was in its infancy then, so you had to basically order books,” said Patrick, who literally taught himself “how to read the weather.” The payoff, he notes, was far from immediate. He tracked down his first tornado near Arthur in 1997.
“It took me almost five years to see my first ‘chasing’ tornado, where I forecast it and I actually caught it,” he said.
“Nowadays you could go down to the states and it would be weeks. I mean, the technology that allows you to forecast where these storms are going to occur and the amount of information you can have in your car, with your phones and the internet, makes it a lot easier to predict and get there.”
For Patrick, storm chasing is about many things, including the thrill of the hunt, but it’s also about constant learning.
“No two storms are the same,” he notes.
While tornadoes are the Holy Grail for most storm watchers, Patrick does follow other types of weather events as well.
“I do all types of weather. I go out looking for ice storms, flooding … winter type of storms, blizzards and storms like that are interesting as well,” he said. However, he noted such storms aren’t generally as “media exciting” unless they include serious damage, large numbers of stranded motorists or other serious consequences.
“I like looking at thunderstorms just for the lighting. It’s one of Mother Nature’s most powerful tools,” he said.
Storm chasing as a hobby can be costly and challenging. Patrick has followed twisters around the area, including the one that hit Centre Wellington in 2005, and others in Mildmay and Shelburne. He has also made numerous trips to the United States.
On one such trip to Kansas about a dozen years ago, Patrick found himself literally in the eye of a couple of storms.
“I’ve actually got caught in two small tornadoes. Basically in both of those instances it was because they were buried in rain. I couldn’t see them.”
In those cases, said Patrick, tornado warnings had not been issued and he thought he was simply dealing with a thunderstorm.
“They went right over the truck. They buffeted me around, but I mean in a weak tornado, it’s not going to do a lot of damage to you,” he explained, noting the tornadoes were “relatively small,” with winds of around 130 or 140 kilometres an hour. Stronger twisters, he points out, can include winds up to 250 or 300km/h.
“You can’t even grasp it.”
One such storm around El Reno, Oklahoma killed three storm chasers in May. Veteran chaser and documentary producer Tim Samaras, 55, was killed by a tornado along with his son Paul Samaras and Carl Young. Patrick met the men a couple of times in 2012.
He said the group was watching a small multiple-vortex tornado, “and it just got big. Thought they were fine – and they just got caught.” The three researchers, he says, were trying to drop probes into the storm, “and it just ate them. It’s the risk. That’s what they were there for.”
Experienced storm chasers, says Patrick, know how to minimize the risks by proper positioning and use of protective equipment.
“You have to know where you are in the storm to stay away from it,” he said, adding that it’s best to follow the storm, because tornadoes rarely reverse direction.
Large-scale hail that often accompanies tornadoes can be almost as dangerous as the wind, says Patrick.
“I’m more scared of hail than I am of storms. They can do a lot of damage. Anything golf ball and bigger, if it hits you in the head, you’re dead – it’s as simple as that.”
Patrick’s current chasing vehicle is a pickup truck with a custom-built cage on the roof, which protects the top of vehicle and folds out to cover the windshield.
“Some guys have full containment systems all over all the windows,” said Patrick, adding, “That’s a three or four thousand dollar investment. If I lived in the States, yes, I’d do it, because you have more large hail storms.”
The storm chasing fraternity has grown considerably since Patrick first took up the practice.
“There’s more and more chasers around than 15 or 20 years ago, but the technology has allowed us to talk. I never knew there were other storm chasers until three or four years into my chasing,” he recalls.
The 1996 movie Twister, which starred Helen Hunt and depicted storm chasers working together to create an advanced weather alert system and putting themselves in the cross-hairs of violent tornadoes, did spark considerable interest, Patrick says.
The movie, he points out, “put a lot of people into it, because they thought that any storm you could go after you’d see a tornado. So a lot of people went out there and started buying all the stuff, outfitting cars and all that stuff, and never saw a tornado. ‘Why am I not seeing a tornado?’ Well it’s tough. It’s not easy to see a tornado.”
Patrick says the instant access to Twitter and Internet video of storms has made people think such events are more accessible than they really are.
Though people can watch the events as they are happening, he explains people don’t realize, “This guy has driven probably 600 miles, been up 14 hours and that culminates in seeing this tornado that probably lasts two minutes. He probably spent $500 on gas and hotels.”
Last year in May, for example, Patrick took a seven-day trip through Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois, covering some 9,200km.
All told, he estimates he’s probably travelled over 200,000 miles in pursuit of wicked weather.
“I don’t chase like I used to now that I have kids,” says Patrick, who has daughters aged two and five years old.
“I’m a little bit more reserved. I won’t go plunging into the unknown like I used to. Even more so with people dying now. It’s just not worth it,” he said, noting his wife, Kristy used to chase storms with him, but stopped once they started a family.
In his early days as a storm chaser, Patrick recalls working with a satellite receiver, which he used to pick up television and radio stations.
“You had a weather radio in your car and if you were lucky you could pick up TV,” he remembers.
Today, “There’s so much more information that tells you where you need to go. It really makes it very easy to chase – if somebody’s experienced in reading what’s going on in the storm.”
Patrick’s storm chasing exploits can be followed on Twitter @wwxchaser and on his website at ontarioweather.com, which includes links to his YouTube page.
