APRIL UPDATE: TORNADO PROBES RETURN! (Patreon)

While I have plenty of other projects going...the Coca Cola cloning process is still going well, and I should have the "diethylamine from DEET" video done here soon...there is one that likes to resurface pretty much every spring: the tornado probe project!

Back in 2022, I got together with a guy named Jack, who was working on getting conical probes in front of a tornado. We came up with a new design that seemed better at the time (at least from a cost and easy-of-use perspective), and I made a video about the process. That November, we got the chance to go out and actually deploy it near Paris, Texas...but the EF4 we were chasing lifted and we missed it.

Jump forward to 2023, and we actually got to see a real tornado in Cole, Oklahoma: an EF3, and my first ever in-person! Sadly, Jack chickened out, and we didn't drive far enough when deploying the probe, so we once again missed out.

2024 was...interesting. I got to go chasing with my Dad and one of my Patrons named Phil (super nice guy), but we barely saw more than a bit of cloud rotation. Three separate times, I made plans to go out chasing with Jack, and each time, he cancelled last minute either because he was tired, he wanted to chase with other friends who came into town after we already had plans, or he felt the tornado risk was too high...kinda dumb, considering the whole point is to see large tornadoes, and inconsiderate because he knows I can't chase without a partner (parent rules...gotta stick to them when they provide your college housing). I haven't really done anything with him since. Regarding the probes, I didn't deploy any myself, but I was commissioned by a KOCO news storm chaser to build a set of probes that included 4K 360 cameras!

This year, I started out with pretty low odds of chasing. Maybe I could get out with my Dad again if he was off work, but that was about it. I even tried reaching out to Jack out of desperation, but got no response. So what did I do? I printed out a bunch of flyers and hung them up around the University of Oklahoma campus, including in the National Weather Center outside the classrooms (school authorities did NOT like that lol). And by a stroke of luck, I actually managed to assemble a new chase team! Mason and Avery are the guys in the pic above, and despite being computer majors, both were super excited about tornado chasing and the possibility of building tornado probes!

At this time, we're currently working on a third-generation tornado probe. The small 3D-printed probes were cute, but after learning about "ground scouring" (when especially large tornadoes literally rip the soil off the earth...up to a foot deep at times!), we figured the large cone probes filled with concrete would be best. And more debris resistant! And this time, aside from the pressure and temperature sensors, we will also be including GPS and our own 4K 360 camera mounted in a CNC'd steel top! If all goes well, and the season keeps up the intensity it has shown early on in other states, this year will be the best yet!