You never saw his video plastered all over the national news outlets. You might only know him because he was on a +Discovery Channel show called 'storm chasers'. But Tim Samaras deserves a much better title than 'storm chaser'. The research his team did was for one purpose:
To improve warnings.
On Friday May 31st, 2013 Tim Samaras, his son Paul Samaras and long time research partner Carl Young were killed by the EF-3 El Reno, OK tornado. An event that has rocked the weather community to it's core.
I only met Tim Samaras one time face to face. He was a keynote speaker at the 2009 Des Moines NWA severe weather conference. As a graduating meteorology student he made a big impression on me. He showed me that weather was much more than looking at charts and forecasting rain/sun.
Simply put, Tim was a genius.
Tim's expertise was not reserved for just tornadoes either. His lightning videography and research was incredible. Tim and his Twistex team would travel to the desert southwest during Monsoon season simply to record lightning at high speeds. +National Geographic did a great piece on his lightning chasing last August found HERE.
I hope these videos will inspire the next generation of meteorologists and researchers. Based on the way he carried himself, Tim would want it that way.
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