Every storm chaser has been looking forward to seeing the movie “Twisters,” a loose follow-up to the box-office smash “Twister” from 1996.
Every storm chaser including me.
For as long as I can remember, my mother has had a recurring dream that a tornado was coming toward her. Her dream inspired my work as a photographer, and my interest in storm chasing.
After going on my first chase in 2021, I became hooked. I’ve been studying meteorology ever since, trying to get better at forecasting storms. Every spring, I fly to Tornado Alley, a region in the Central United States where tornadoes are likely to form.
Chasing a storm is a powerful experience, one that I wanted to share with others through photography.
I knew I wanted to work on a photo essay that coincided with the release of “Twisters.” So I pitched a story about storm chasing to Shannon Simon, a photo editor at The New York Times Magazine. We wanted to create a photo essay where readers could feel what it was like to be on a chase, and who better to go with than the most famous storm chaser in the world, Reed Timmer?
I spent weeks trying to connect with him, but during the storm chasing season, he’s on the move and difficult to get ahold of. Once I was able to track him down, he agreed to do the story — only, I learned, because he appreciated my perspective as both a photographer and a storm chaser. We knew the project involved a lot of trust on both sides.
We decided to try for Memorial Day weekend because the forecast showed great potential for storms. But unluckily for us, the Dominator 3, a seven-ton armored Ford F-350 that Reed uses for chases, was in the shop.
I flew to Oklahoma City to meet Reed and his team anyway, hoping the vehicle would be fixed in time. Thankfully, a few hours after I arrived, I got a text with good news: The Dominator 3 was out of the shop, and we were officially going chasing.
The next morning, I showed up at Team Dominator headquarters (Reed’s house) to meet the chasing group, which included Reed, Edgar ONeal and Matt Spatol. Then we hit the road.
It’s tricky to take photographs while inside a dark, moving vehicle. The ride was bumpy, and I got thrown around a lot in the back seat, all while trying to hold the camera steady and capture images. I spent a lot of the chase trying to reposition myself to get a better view of the storm as it formed. Getting out of the car to take a photograph was out of the question — once the storm picks up, you need to be ready to take off at a moment’s notice.
At some point, Reed yelled out, “It’s on the ground!” Debris began flying around the car, and the left rear window was jammed, so we couldn’t roll it up. The tornado was forming as we manually pushed up the window.
I looked out the window to see a massive metal fence flying toward me. I knew there was nothing I could do about it. I just had to hope the armored car would protect us. The metal fence wrapped around the back of the Dominator 3, then flew away. “Debris hit the car!” Reed shouted. I dove toward the front seat to get a better look at what was happening above us.
Reed doesn’t just chase storms, he intercepts them. He positioned the vehicle in the direct path of the tornado, and soon enough, dust swallowed the Dominator whole. Being inside a tornado is not like being in the eye of a hurricane, where everything is calm. Instead, heavy winds and debris whip around the vehicle. Your ears even pop.
Reed yelled, “Big time tornado!” It’s a phrase I heard a lot during my time with him.
I left that chase covered in bruises, ready to do it all over again. And then we did, for three more weeks.
We traveled from Texas to North Dakota, through 10 states, all the way to the U.S.- Canada border. We spent up to 14 hours driving per day, trying to get from one potential storm to the next. We alternated between eating fast food, pizza and whatever we could grab from the local gas station. Everywhere we went, people seemed to know Reed and his dog, Gizmo. (She has seen over 200 tornadoes.)
Although “Twisters” (yes, I did go see it!) was an entertaining ride, going on a real-life chase with Reed — in all of its bumpy, wild and thrilling glory — isn’t something I’ll soon forget. And I hope the images I took help readers feel as if they were crammed in the Dominator 3 with us, too.
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