Storm chaser Tom Stephanac didn’t have to travel far to get this great shot of several bolts of lightning illuminating the night sky. He said he snapped the shot through a window in his Woodbridge home during an early spring 2002 storm.
Vaughan
July 17, 2008 12:01 AM
By: Keely Grasser
When the skies darken, thunder booms and lightning flashes, most people head for cover.
But Tom Stephanac heads toward the storm.
The 22-year-old Woodbridge resident is a storm chaser. He hunts storms to photograph, videotape and observe nature at its angriest state.
“The storm as a whole is really amazing. It’s something of beauty for us (chasers), at least,” Mr. Stephanac said.
This year, he took his love of the chase to the central and southern United States, into the so-called tornado alley. He and Weather Network meteorologist and fellow storm chaser Patrick Cool headed there during the height of the spring tornado season.
“I’ve been wanting to go forever,” said Mr. Stephanac, who became interested in weather at a very early age. He said he used to make his mom drive him on chases before he was old enough to drive himself.
This year, since he had just wrapped up a philosophy and communications studies degree from York University, Mr. Stephanac said the time had come to chase bigger storms.
Storms in tornado alley are completely different than southern Ontario storms, he explained.
“The most severe (storm) here is like a daily occurrence there. It’s what would be considered a garden variety storm there.”
And, it wasn’t long into their trip before Mr. Stephanac and Mr. Cool saw that for themselves.
They left May 12 and hit Oklahoma the next day, Mr. Stephanac said. The pair knew there was going to be an outbreak of severe storms in the area and they soon began to watch them form.
“We saw the storm form a wall cloud within two minutes,” he said. A wall cloud is a lowering from the main clouds, which is frequently dark in appearance and shows signs of rotation.
Ms. Stephanac said he has never seen a wall cloud spin so fast before.
Wall clouds frequently precede tornadoes, which Mr. Stephanac said are “the icing on the cake” for storm chasers.
He and Mr. Cool then saw a “chunky nub” forming at the bottom of the cloud, Mr. Stephanac said, signalling to them they had hit the jackpot.
Suddenly, the tornado was on the road about two kilometres away from them, he said.
“I was like, whoa, maybe we should leave.”
But they didn’t leave right away, and Mr. Stephanac said the tornado got a little too close for comfort.
Aside from the extremely frequent lightning, he said the pair started to become concerned about hail.
They headed north and Mr. Stephanac said it was “about the worst thing we could have done.”
To their north, large hail was falling. To their south was the tornado and to the west, whipping winds.
“We just made it to the next crossroad that would take us east just as big hailstones started bouncing metres away,” Mr. Stephanac said. “We were sweating for a bit.”
They were safe, but Mr. Stephanac said the storm was a good learning experience for the pair.
“In southern Ontario the rule of the game is to get as close (to a storm) as possible. But for most people that’s a no-no. If it had been a bigger storm, we could have been in big trouble,” he said.
It wasn’t the last storm the men would chase on their week-long trip — which saw them travelling more than 1,000 kilometres a day.
In Texas, they hit what Mr. Stephanac said storm chasers call “the mothership.”
The storm, which he said was the most visually stunning he’s ever seen, was coming over the Mexican border.
It was huge, he said, perhaps hundreds of kilometres across and had many levels that were clearly defined, similar to a stack of plates.
“Structure like that is prized because it’s so hard to find,” he explained.
Mr. Stephanac and Mr. Cool watched the storm — which produced grapefruit-sized hail and a tornado, which they believe they caught on videotape in the distance — approach for three or four hours, he said.
Mr. Stephanac posts his chase photographs and videos on his website, vaughanweather.com. Many of his videos, from Southern Ontario, as well as his trip to tornado alley, are also available on YouTube.
He also makes a bit of extra cash by selling his tape and images to news networks, he said.
Much of his chase video is shot using a camera mounted on his windshield.
When he forecasts a storm approaching, Mr. Stephanac packs his car with his equipment, an emergency kit and a raincoat and heads off.
He’s chased many Southern Ontario storms — including his local best, the August 2005 storm that washed out Finch Avenue — each time heading to the storm’s southwest flank, where air feeds upwards and where tornadoes usually form.
But that’s rare, he said, adding that it’s lightning that’s the actually most dangerous part of the storm.
And ironically, Mr. Stephanac admits he has a phobia of lightning — and he also hates getting soaked in the rain.