Storm Chasers

Any of you ever watch this show? We do. It's about a group of storm chasers who go around trying to catch footage and scientific info on tornadoes. They have a big group of vehicles including a doppler truck, radar truck, TIV (Tornado Intercept Vehicle), a medic, and other crew vehicles. The TIV is probably the coolest looking of their vehicles. It reminds you of the car from the movies "Back to the Future". It's totally covered in metal and is designed to literally drive into a tornado.

This week while Wayne was driving back from a trip to a plant in Missouri, he called me up and said, "You'll never guess what I just saw."

"Um...."

"The TIV!"

"The what?"

"The TIV--the tornado vehicle!"

"Oh....cool"

(very stimulating converstation, huh?)

Anyway, while we were talking the rest of the crew drove past him. He was pretty excited to see them in the area. (Any one who has been seeing the weather around here knows that we have been hammered with tornadoes and storms around the area.)

Then on Friday night we went up to Norfolk, NE (pronounced Norfork--another story for another time) for another triathlon and when we pulled into the parking lot Wayne noticed a storm chasers truck. I thought it just looked like a sort of dumpy, run down truck. As we got out of the van we then saw all the other vehicles including not one, but two TIVs!

It was Wayne's birthday and I was feeling a little guilty for making the day all about me with the tri, so this made up for it. (Because we wouldn't have seen these if it wasn't for me needing to go up there, right?)

Wayne thought it was pretty cool. I agree, they were interesting to look at. They're like tanks--SOLID, thick metal, windows reinforced 20 times over. Almost makes me willing to sit in it going through a tornado...almost.