National Geographic November 2013 [antikvár]

It's shortly after six in the evening on May 31,2013. Sitting in the passenger seat of the white Chevrolet Cobalt, the 55-year-old, bookishly handsome storm chaser momentarily gapes at the video camera that the driver of the car is pointing at his face. Then he looks back through the window at the outskirts of El Reno, Oklahoma. The wheat fields are eerily aglow and shudder from a vicious wind. No more than two miles away from the car, twin funnel clouds spiral downward from an immensity of blackness. What we hear in the man's voice on the videotape is not quite terror. Nor, however, do his words sound clinically factual, in the manner of the scientist he happens to be. "Oh, my God. This is gonna be a huge one," But then the month that storm chasers refer to he says. as May Magic arrived—and with it, vertical wind The man frowns. He strokes his chin with al- shear produced by southerly winds originating most comical vigor. His name is Tim Samaras, from the Gulf of Mexico lifting and cooling air and much of his adult life has been spent in the moving east over the Rocky Mountains, thereby dangerous company of tornadoes. He's obsessed generating thunderstorms and, along the way, with them, to be honest—to the point where his lighting up the online discussion groups of wife, Kathy, would wryly note that her husband happy storm chasers all across America: Severe "had an affair with Mother Nature." weather! Severely GREAT weather! The affair had resumed later than usual this On the morning of May 18 Samaras kissed spring. "Who ate all the tornadoes?" he com- Kathy goodbye and made sure that his lucky plained via Twitter. And on Facebook: "Why McDonald's cheeseburger—an actual, if by now can't there be wedges harmlessly roaming the somewhat moldy, cheeseburger—was situated open plains for us geeky chasers to observe?" correctly on the dashboard of his Cobalt. Then THE LAST CHASE 35