Original subtitles

It's like she's trying to do something right in front of us. You've got to go

faster. You've got to punch it. She's here!

Tornado Alley, USA.

Yeah, there's a tornado there to the south-southwest of you. Coming right for

us! For eight weeks, every spring, a maverick team of filmmakers and

scientists takes on the impossible.

Go for it, Pat, but I don't think you're going to make it.

Intercepting one of nature's most deadly phenomena.

There it is.

It's here.

It's here.

Rock everything. It's here.

Tornadoes. We're going to haul ass right now.

Okay, we got to go. We got to go. We got to go.

Using state-of-the-art technology.

Looks like it's crossing the road right now.

And this.

armored 14,000-pound tank.

Go right, go right, go right. They try to plunge into the heart of deadly

twisters.

If they survive, they may find scientific data that can help save

hundreds of lives and land the ultimate storm-chasing image.

That is so close. We should probably go.

A shot from inside a tornado.

Go forward. We're going to drive right into it.

Sean Casey is an adventurer and extreme filmmaker who lives life on the edge.

Camera's up!

For nearly a decade, he's traveled the world filming natures of dreams. He's

got it!

Hurricanes, earthquakes, typhoons.

But every spring for the last seven years, Sean's returned to the Midwest to

shoot the deadly natural spectacle which has captured his soul. Where is it?

Where's that film?

tornado. Witnessing these storms and the power and the beauty and the excitement

and the adrenaline rush and being close to something that's so powerful.

It feels like you're under the foot of a giant that's right on top of you.

And it's that feeling that I want to try and capture in this film.

Right there, a little funnel.

Sean's great ambition is to make film history with the one shot that no one

else has.

Get ready to roll. A shot from inside a tornado.

All I want is one shot.

Tornado coming right at us, and the earth is boiling, and there's trees

whipping around, and we're just filming it and filming it and filming it.

And then it just impacts us.

The film I'm making relies upon that one shot.

To get the shot he needs, Sean designed an armored tripod on wheels.

One strong enough to survive a tornado.

He calls it the Tornado Intercept Vehicle, or TIV for short.

This could be something.

Sean built it five years ago, combining the frame and chassis of a Ford 450

pickup truck.

with a 400 horsepower engine.

He added 8,000 pounds of steel plating. I mean, there is so much welding, so I

had to learn how to weld. And bulletproof windows to protect him and

his crew from flying debris.

I gave us attitude by cutting angry eyes.

There is a rotating turret on top to support the IMAX camera.

We need to be able to get around quickly.

We need to have protection.

And we need to be able to film at a moment's notice in any direction.

So the design, really, it was mandated by the function.

But the TIV alone can't guarantee Sean will achieve his dream.

It would be suicidal to build a vehicle like this and go off to the Midwest and

try and drive it into a tornado without radar.

To find and film fast-moving tornadoes, and to survive the adventure, Sean needs

help.

So he's on his way to Tornado Alley.

Here he'll meet the one man who can aid him.

Dr. Josh Worman, a world-renowned weather expert with state-of-the-art

radar technology.

Dr. Josh Worman is the superego, and I'm the id.

Josh, I have a present for you.

Something to remember me by when Tib gets destroyed this year.

For the past seven years, Josh and Sean have chased tornadoes together.

Tornadoes are some of the most stunning and fascinating, but also very dangerous

things in nature.

It's a pretty donut with this thing. I mean, this is beautiful.

And they represent one of the unknown in our scientific knowledge.

What I'm trying to do is penetrate into that unknown.

with radar.

Josh was the first scientist to build a mobile weather station with a custom

-built eight-foot Doppler radar dish.

He calls it the DOW, Doppler on Wheels.

I took on to try to get big radars, very ambitious instrumentation, right next to

the tornado and study them. Push the envelope of what we thought our

technology could do.

The two men and their two vehicles should make the perfect tornado hunting

team.

Josh's DAO tracks the twisters, while Sean's PIV reaches the one area the DAO

can't go.

Close to the ground, where the worst damage is.

That's the area Sean wants to film, and Josh wants to study.

In order to forecast how strong a tornado is going to be, how big it's

going to be, to forecast more precisely its track, We need to understand what's

happening in that lowest 50 or 100 feet in the tornado.

To capture that information, Josh has equipped the TIB with sensing devices

which sample wind speed, temperature, and air pressure. It's a very symbiotic

relationship. We arrive into a tornado and sample those winds.

Can you go 100 meters north of the intersection?

And he, in turn, gives us guidance and tells us those winds are safe to drive

into. So the relationship is...

It's awesome.

The only problem is, after seven years of storm chasing, neither man has

achieved his dream.

That's why Josh added a new team member with a new task this year.

Mara is a freelance writer who volunteered to join the crew.

Josh, how's it going? Nice to meet you.

Welcome to our crazy spring.

I'm very excited.

She'll be driving a vehicle nicknamed the Scout.

and helping deploy a whole new tracking device called a probe.

So what we're doing differently this year is these probes. It's basically

just a heavy steel disc with a bunch of instruments on it. What you're going to

do is get those out of the car, drop them, and hopefully they get run over by

the tornado.

My tornado probe enables us to see what's happening in the ground, see

what's happening where the radar can't see, and see what's happening where the

kid isn't.

It's 4 o'clock, and all of the team members have now arrived at the home

base, and the chase season can now begin.

Ready?

Race!

The Dow driver is Herb Stein, a 20-year chasing veteran.

The scout team consists of Mara and Justin.

Driving the Tid is Sean's college buddy, Ronan, and the navigator and cameraman

is Byron.

Tomorrow. Chase season can finally begin.

They're about to chase some of the deadliest storms on the planet. Keep

going. Push it, push it, push it.

It's the beginning of tornado season, and the team has gathered in Goodland,

Kansas.

Intercepting twisters is a deadly game, and this season Josh has raised the

stakes by adding an extra vehicle.

Having the probes out this year makes the mission much more potentially

dangerous if we lose track of vehicles.

The key for me is I have to keep a mental image of where everybody is and

where the tornado is coming towards them.

Before Josh and his team face off against the tornado, they develop a

battle plan.

Okay, I guess if we're pretending the tornado's half a mile north, I'm going

to deploy the probe here.

For each intercept, the DAO stops in a safe place and scans to determine the

tornado's speed and direction.

Then, with Josh's instructions, the TIV races ahead of the tornado, deploys, and

waits for the tornado to hit.

The scout's mission is new.

Using Josh's guidance, it gets in front of the tornado's path, drops four

probes, and retreats to a safe distance.

Now, Josh must test his plan.

Cargo, is this out free? Are you ready?

Uh-huh. Okay, please start rolling.

For this practice, a white cargo van will act as the tornado.

It will travel over the same ground and at the same speed that the eye of the

twister would cover.

Uh, Tiv, would you please go north about a mile and a half from this location?

From the Dow, Josh directs the Tiv and Scout into position.

Okay,

copy.

Okay, lower everything. Go down, go down. Lower everything.

Kim is up.

Kim is rolling.

Tiv is all set.

Okay, thanks, Tiv. That was four minutes, nine seconds.

Scout, start deploying at the intersection, half a mile north.

Each probe weighed 120 pounds.

Oh, man, this is heavy. And for Mara, the job is more difficult than she

anticipated.

Down just a little bit, up, up, down.

Okay.

Scout has deployed probe one and is continuing to deploy probe two.

Okay, at about four minutes, it took them to get to their first one.

Four minutes is too long for one probe. They must deploy all four probes in six

minutes to avoid getting run over by the tornado.

Tib, this is Dow 3. Prepare for the tornado.

Okay, the van just passed us, so we are in the tornado right now.

Brace for impact!

Tib was out there really fast, but it seems like Gowd is not having enough

time to deploy its probes.

We're going to see if we can get them out of there before the tornado hits.

Scouts in the car, we are heading back south to deploy the fourth probe.

Cargo's coming up on 15 now.

So you may not have time to complete your mission.

There's the tornado.

It's going to be close for comfort.

The tornado is just nine-tenths of a mile from the scout vehicle.

These are more vehicles than I've had to coordinate, so I'm losing track.

This is pretty chaotic. And just imagine if the...

Before the scout vehicle can move, the tornado crosses the road right in front

of them.

If this was a real tornado, Mara and Justin could be dead.

I'm starting to get worried that there's so many little pieces to think about.

For Josh to now think about...

where the probes are going to go, how far they're going to be spaced, and

where in the road.

I mean, that's got to take some time to think about.

And while he's thinking about that, he's probably not thinking about other

things. And that's the tip.

I mean, I feel like I'm going to cry.

In reality, this is going to be nightmarishly complicated.

Today is the very first day of the actual storm chasing.

This is like the real deal.

They've practiced just one, but the next morning the team is off chasing a nearby

storm. I think today what we're looking at is almost guaranteed convective.

The National Weather Service has predicted a line of supercells across

the Texas Panhandle. These rotating thunderstorms are the precursors for

tornadoes. All right, let's go. I'm ready.

The team heads down to Amarillo, Texas.

to position themselves for the check. Are you ready?

I'm ready.

We're going to go over to Dumas, and then we're going to go south to

Amarillo.

After five hours of driving, the convoy pulls off the road a few miles south of

Amarillo. We're just going to stop and get data.

The Dow begins to scan for supercells.

These severe thunderstorms have deep, persistently rotating updrafts called

mesocyclones.

If you find a supercell, you may find a tornado.

One of the hardest things to forecast is where the thunderstorms are going to

form. So I'm scanning now basically every 30 seconds, and as soon as one

pops, we're going to dive in after it.

Josh finally spots a supercell on his radar.

Two of these storms right now are looking stronger than the other, 75,

661.

Josh, what is this?

A bulletin from the National Weather Service signals even more danger for the

first chase of the season.

What happened? It's PDS. Oh, my God.

It's PDS. We're doomed.

Game over.

It's PDS.

Particularly dangerous situation.

We're actually expecting destructive tornadoes, not just regular tornadoes.

Oh, okay.

Big, mean day.

First day out.

Potentially fast-moving tornadoes. Potentially violent tornadoes.

Woo! Maybe.

Mara prepares for hail and flying debris.

This is like dork central.

This sucks. I hate this. This does not feel good.

As a rookie, she has no idea what to expect.

I've never gone into a dangerous situation just for kicks.

I'm just trying to counterbalance the freakiness of it by just staying calm.

I don't see any reason not to go for this. Let's undeploy and go for it. All

right, we're going to undeploy right now. Let's start going after this Briona

one. All team vehicles start rushing southwest towards the storm fronts.

Byron!

You're going to the bathroom and everybody's leaving.

After seven years of frustration chasing storms, Sean is ready for a shot.

All I want is one shot.

We have an IMAX camera that has three minutes of film loaded. We have a

thousand foot roll. It's extremely expensive.

Okay. But I only need 20 seconds.

All I want out of this two months is 20 seconds of footage.

And that 20 seconds is a tornado coming right at us and hitting us. All I want.

20 seconds.

have a tornado warning. One of these cells around here has been tornado

warned.

Storm coming.

I love the little birds chirping.

The calm before the storm.

We're just going down this road to take a look at this storm.

Josh, Tiff is in front of you guys awaiting directions.

Thank you, Tiff. Stand by.

How's it look to you, Sean?

I'm seeing the base now.

There's a slight lowering to the base from the storm right now. Could be a

wall cloud forming, but it's still pretty light.

A rotating wall cloud is the area of a thunderstorm most likely to produce a

tornado.

Sean, get the hail.

Here comes the lightning.

Whoa, dime-sized hail. It's like bouncing off the car.

Pack! Pack!

Hail means a tornado could be near.

What we're going to do here is see how this thing evolves and see if we have

one play on this, maybe in 15 minutes or so.

Okay, it's starting to clear.

Starting to see features.

Okay, this is it. This is when it's going to happen, right?

Come on, baby.

Let's see it. Let's see this tornado.

Coming up.

That thing is lowering quickly.

It's day one, and the team has been on the road for 11 hours. The storm they

are chasing has produced rain and hail, but so far no twister.

There's tremendous pressure on Josh to

find a tornado to intercept, but even with the most advanced technology, storm

chasing is a combination of guesswork and unbelievable luck.

Right now, this storm does not look great.

And sometimes, the weather is not your friend.

I want to look a little further out and see what we're passing up in the bigger

world.

Josh calls a fellow meteorologist, Curtis, for some advice.

Hello, Curtis?

What do you know?

Boy, that's far away.

Curtis alerts him to a more promising storm developing 70 miles to the south

between Plainview and Tulia.

All right, just got off the phone with Curtis.

He said the one we're on right now is going to interfere with a lot of other

storms. And we said if he had any choice, he'd be on the one that's west

of Plainview. But it has recently been tornado warned.

So I think we're going to bail on this and head south towards Tulia.

Go ahead and get turning around.

Mara is beginning to see that storm chasing is as frustrating as it is

dangerous.

Seems like you have to have a pretty strong ego to be just freaking calling

the shots.

If you choose the wrong way, you've got this whole team of people sort of forced

to go your way.

Go, go, go.

It's a judgment call.

Someone has to make it, so we'll leave that to Josh.

Just as Josh is abandoning the storm they are on in favor of the Plainview

-Tulia supercell, his team reports a cone formation at the base of the cloud.

This is usually the start of a tornado.

South, southwest.

Where do you see this supposed funnel?

It's north of 40.

Something's dropping down.

That thing is lowering quickly.

Oh, I see it.

I think we should probably make one stand on it.

I'm going to find that part of the sand right now.

Following his crew's advice, Josh decides to stay on the storm in front of

them rather than drive all the way south to Tulia.

Basically, we're going to go north up to I-40.

I'll have to make 100 decisions during the course of a mission.

Which state to pick? Which storm should we go after? When should we give up on

that storm?

I'm not sure we can catch the plain view on. That's the problem.

There are a ton of different decisions like that.

Hopefully, I can make most of them right and we'll still get there.

If you could loop it, we might have a couple images.

I have a little bit at home.

Hello? Curtis calls again.

With bad news.

Okay, right now, we just decided to try once more on this Hereford cell.

Lovely.

Great. Okay.

Curtis just called. There's a confirmed tornado on the Plainview cell.

Ooh, that hurt. That really hurt.

That was probably the tornado of the day, I'd say.

This time, Josh picked the wrong storm.

The big tornado is on the ground, 70 miles south of where they are.

743, Doppler radar indicated a thunderstorm producing a tornado. The

most dangerous part of the storm located four miles southwest of Tulia, moving

northeast at 35 miles per hour. Doppler Dave here. We have a classic tornado

touching down at this time.

Very dangerous storm. I mean, it's the same storm that's been producing

tornadoes.

Josh. What? The engine, for the first time this year, went all the way to H.

I want to get out and just check. Actually, we're stopped at one second

because our engine looks like it may be having an overheating problem.

And to make matters worse, the Dow is having engine problems. Oh,

no.

While the team waits for the Dow to cool down, they're stuck.

unable to continue chasing the storm that they're on or the one further south

near Tulia. We had to choose among a few storms and it looks like we didn't pick

the right one.

It's just a real kick in the gut to have that happen on our first day out.

To make matters worse, the Tulia tornado was in fact a PDS, a particularly

dangerous situation.

The tornado has caused injuries and property damage.

Why are you doing this to me?

Vehicles should turn around wherever they can. We're going to go back south

to take a look. I really would like to document the damage.

Josh decides to drive 70 miles south to Tulia, where they will survey the damage

and test the storm's intensity.

Today, very well, could have been the only chance we'd get for the whole

season.

After a two-hour drive, the team arrives in Tulia.

They are shocked to see the extent of the damage.

Wow. Yeah, it's pretty raked over.

Wow, that's a mean storm.

Yikes.

It made a damaging tornado, and it went through a town, which is a shame. But

scientifically, it's an additional shame that we weren't there to document it,

and we don't really know what kind of winds did the damage.

To determine the tornado's intensity, Josh will need to wait and see the

damage in the light of day.

The next morning, the science team heads back to Julia for a closer look.

This is all from the tornado?

Oh my God.

Look at that.

This is absolute destruction.

Daylight reveals the enormous damage a single medium-sized tornado can do in

under a minute.

It just tears right through brick.

This is sort of the more tedious work of doing our science. It's not out there

chasing an excitement, but it's an equally critical part to complete the

picture to understand what's happening in the tornado.

All the poles are all bent over.

Hi there. Nice to meet you.

Tim Marshall is a structural engineer who will help Josh classify the tornado

from 0 to 5 on the enhanced Fujita scale by examining the extent of the damage.

This wasn't a really strong tornado. This, I think, was in the EF2 range.

EF2 means the winds were 111 to 135 miles per hour. An EF5 tornado would

have winds of over 200 miles per hour.

Last night, the tornado must have come directly up the street. That's right.

We're actually standing very close to the center.

We saw our probes, and I don't think they would survive this environment.

They'd be shredded by all this metal flying around. Look at this fence over

here. It's filled with debris.

All this came from that grocery store right behind us over here.

When I'm targeting a storm and collecting data, it's very abstract. But

when I come into a place like this, I really see the human impact.

There's nothing I can do to stop these tornadoes. The only thing I can do is

study them, and if we have better warnings, better forecasts, the number

of deaths from these tornadoes can go way down.

Coming up... It's behind us!

Oh, my God. This is insane.

After leaving Tulia, where a 130-mile-an-hour tornado destroyed much

of the town, the chase team has drifted north for three days into Kansas.

Without spotting any significant weather events.

Team members are beginning to feel as if they missed the big one in the season.

Another hotel, another city.

Then finally, we need to know where the tip support vehicle is too. Their

spirits jump.

There are four cells between Dodge and I-7.

A line of supercells is reported near Dodge City, 150 miles to the southwest.

They're back on the chase.

Right now we're trying to place ourselves ahead of this line.

First we're going to go up to about here and let this come towards us. If that

doesn't organize or do anything, and then we get the next one coming up the

line. Hey, Justin, what would you give today from 1 to 10?

Woo-hoo!

This type of setup is a pretty rare setup. It's basically all the

ingredients we want to see storms develop we have today.

This is insane.

It's an unusual day.

It's critical to us that we succeed this year. Last season was a disaster for us.

We had all the technology, we had all our logistics in play,

The atmosphere did not cooperate.

Just be all ready to go.

We might need to operate instantly.

Doing science is not free.

And we're only going to get grants if we have success.

If you have a bad year, you need that next year even more.

The team gets in front of the supercell.

But there's a problem.

The storms are not developing the way Josh had hoped.

This doesn't look too impressive.

It's not really the kind of target we want.

As Josh stands for the next target.

Byron takes a moment to recalibrate the tips of scientific instruments.

All right, let me throw out a different option. We just go way east of this and

give them another couple hours to evolve into a set of supercells. All right, we

ready? Yes, let's go. Do a U-turn and turn back south.

We're moving, we're moving.

In their rush to keep up with the Dow, Sean and Ronan almost leave Byron

behind. Byron!

Get in!

The caravan zigzags over 500 miles of Kansas roads, chasing ghosts.

We plod our breadcrumbs today. It's going to look like we don't have any

clue what we're doing, which I guess would be accurate.

The team spears take a nosedive.

I've had many days where I've just driven in circles before.

Today, I'm thinking it's not going to turn out to be a good day.

Bojica. There, I said it. Bojica. In the world of storm chasers, bojica is a

dirty word.

Bojica, bojica, bojica.

An acronym that translates into, I surrender.

Bojica.

No.

Shut up.

Get out.

According to Herb, today's case is over.

It is I, the driver of Dow 3.

They're a bunch of babies.

The team pulls over to discuss where to bed down for the night.

What, you guys punched your ticket already?

But Sean has no interest in calling it quits.

No, nothing's going to happen. I feel tired today.

Oh, I want my favorite pillow.

I'm curious about this.

Got this nice dark cloud moving probably 40 miles an hour.

I'm tired.

You know, it's 4 o'clock, nothing's changing.

Other people in our group are holding out hope that it's going to be good.

Here comes a warning. The National Weather Service in Dodge City has issued

a severe thunderstorm warning for Pratt County. Okay.

Okay, people, right, like I've been talking about?

Sean's instinct was on the money.

The spell that we were kind of loosely targeting and looked disorganized all of

a sudden looks a little more organized.

It's certainly sliding northeast fast, which I guess we need to do too.

Okay, I think we should go north. We've got to stay ahead of this. We're moving,

we're moving.

We're moving.

We're going to go.

What are we doing?

I know, we're going to tornado warning.

Woo, tornado warning.

That went from boring to interesting very fast.

You can blame my mojito.

Next, the probe team's first deployment.

Oh, my God. And Tim rushes for an intercept.

Keep your eyes on the ground for the tornado. Keep going. Push it, push it,

push it.

Okay,

basically we're looking at a hook feature that is to our south.

Southwest.

The frustrated team have been chasing storms for 12 hours with nothing to show

for it.

That thing is getting low to the ground.

But out of nowhere, a tornado warning has them back on the road.

I can't believe how far you can see it.

Mara and Justin prepare for their first interception.

I think I'll ditch the phone, ditch the wallet, in case it's wet, in case I die.

Oh, my God.

I think it has a pretty good mezzo, but it's probably not making a tornado right

now. I see it, too.

See to the right? It's a big cone.

Holy moly.

There's debris on the ground. It's a relatively large circulation.

We should stop.

This is the moment the storm chasers have been waiting for.

Josh can finally put his battle plan into action.

Josh, how close is it to the road right now?

With the tornado less than a mile and a half away, Mara and Justin deploy their

first probe of the season.

That is unbelievable.

As a journalist, you can't talk about deploying probes the same way if you see

somebody deploy them or if you're out there running.

Probe 1 deployed.

I'm first person on this story.

Tornado's going to cross one quarter mile east of 70th Avenue.

With the probe positioned.

Josh focuses his attention on the TIV. Okay, right here.

Back to the driveway, point your nose to the south.

The TIV reaches its deployment destination and the team members brace

themselves for impact.

I do not see it. I do not see it.

Keep your eyes on the ground. Keep your eyes on the ground for the tornado.

A tornado is turning to the north and may cross the main road at...

70th Avenue.

The twister keeps changing direction, and Josh makes a last-minute adjustment

to Tiv's intercept point.

Tiv, if you can move over to 70th Avenue, you have about a minute.

All right.

All right. Following Josh's orders, the Tiv moves three blocks west.

Tiv is moving towards 70th.

All right. Where's this tornado?

Tornado should be crossing the road any second.

Look for circulation.

I do not see it. Looks like it's crossing the road right now.

Just pause.

Ronan makes a quick 180 and heads back the way they came.

But

it's

too late and they miss the tornado by 400 yards.

The twister barreled through an open field, but the chasers are not equipped

to leave the road.

The event has now crossed the road.

If I hadn't done a last-minute adjustment, they would have been fine.

The tornado dropped north of us.

Well, I sent it to the wrong location. Well, actually, first I sent it to the

right location, then I moved them west to the wrong location, and I wish they

had dated the first one.

The tornado was moving, and then it turned north, and then it went like

that.

I had the fear that Josh was taking too big of a bite, in that he was going to

have to place the TIFF and the probes into the path of a tornado.

He's a brilliant man, but there might be too many elements.

So tell me about your probe deployment.

You just got one deployed?

We got probes around it, just didn't...

hit it, so it wasn't a success in that sense, but we did the best we could.

It's nearly 7pm, and the chase day should be over, but Josh is not willing

to accept defeat just yet.

Tim and Scott, this is Josh. Our new target storm is coming up towards Pratt.

We're going to be going south towards Pratt.

There's a tornado out there. We're kind of...

Paralleling it. All we want to do is go faster than it, but we've got to go

fast.

Oh, we're taking big hail.

After 13 hours of chafing, the caravan continues to follow Josh and the Dow.

Okay, Harbaugh, stop for a minute.

They're stopping, they're stopping, they're stopping.

What do you want to do?

I just took a meter reading.

There's no light. Even if I filmed it, say, 10 frames per second, I mean, it's

going to make the tornado look muddy. So I'm done.

We're shooting film.

And with film, you need light for exposure.

I can't film in the dark.

I'm going to go out in the hatch and get hit by a hill because that's how I feel

it. Sean, you really want to go out there?

I want to get hit right on the head.

Right on my head.

Just go ahead and blame me.

We weren't going to get anything out of it, so Tiff decided to stop.

Tell Josh that we're done.

Tiff, to doubt?

Go ahead, to doubt.

We kindly ask permission to cease and assist.

Okay, and he may just have other possibilities. Because the next one is

really just a few minutes away, and that really is the endgame of what we're

doing. Despite the dangers of chasing tornadoes at night, Josh urges the Tib

to go for an intercept so he can collect his scientific data.

I mean, if we go into a tornado in the next 10 minutes, in the name of science

and humanity, that's okay.

10-4, we are turning around. Tell Josh he's a mean man.

Tib, go for it fast, but I don't think you're going to make it.

Are you ready? Get some! Get some!

At least we have that.

Sean rushes into the black hole of an invisible tornado.

Toward what might be the most dangerous moments of his life.

Coming up... What's up? What are we doing?

As day ends and darkness descends, the exhausted chase team is inside a violent

supercell. which has just generated a tornado.

The TIV races towards an intercept, but it's too dark for Sean's IMAX mission.

If they succeed, it will be solely to collect Josh's scientific data.

They can only get glimpses of the tornado as lightning bolts flash across

the sky.

Slow down, slow down, slow down.

There it is.

Should I stop?

Yeah, stop.

Don't touch any metal.

The TIV deploys down Country Road 281. But without warning, the tornado grows

and is now on a collision course with the Dow and Scout as well.

Sounds like I hear something.

Josh needs to get Dow and Scout out of its path before it's too late.

My biggest fear

is that when we're driving in these very bad weather conditions, that we'll

swerve and cause an accident.

Josh, I'm afraid we're leaving people behind.

I can't see.

You've got to watch this sort of phantom thing popping up here.

All of a sudden, that could look a lot meaner when we pop out of the preset.

I am so freaking flying out here.

Whoa!

As the Dallin scouts leave for safety, Josh directs the TIV to hold its ground.

Tornado is one mile south of the intersection.

Exactly where the TIV is.

Is that it?

Something's crossing the road.

It's here!

Push all the buttons!

Push all the buttons!

The TIV is positioned directly in the path of the tornado.

Oh, yeah, she's rocking a bit. She's rocking.

Yeah, she's shuddering.

The swirling winds of the twister reach 200 miles per hour.

Hold on, guys. Hold on.

It's the TIV's biggest test ever.

Wow.

How's the mask look? Mask is holding.

What the f*** are we doing?

Oh.

It's easing up.

Oh, that was amazing.

Perfect deployment, my friend.

We did this for science, guys.

Why don't we have a science grant for doing this, right?

That was scary.

We actually drove right into the center of the mesocyclone. We drove right into

the center? That's crazy.

It had its moment.

I'm glad. I'm glad we're done.

There's no other science team, ever, that has done this kind of grueling

tornado science.

At the end of the first chase week, The score is science one, tip zero.

It was cool whenever it was lit up, but, you know, we still couldn't shoot it on

the IMAX. Yeah, today was a complete failure for us, but a complete success

for science.

We still have half a season to go, so I'm optimistic.

We're going to get this data.

Coming up on Storm Chasers. We're driving down a dirt road towards at

least one monster tornado.

Sean finds himself in a deadly situation.

This has gotten bad. You need to back up right now.

Sean! This is how people die.

And the convoy is surrounded by three twisters.

We are between two tornadoes right now.

Yeah, there's a tornado there.

Where? What's where?

You could just die.

I'm so scared right now.

Okay, we gotta go, we gotta go, we gotta go!