Episode 13 Story Of A Stormchaser

This week Dan meets storm chaser Warren Causey, founder of The Sirens Project. Causey, an engineer with a lifelong passion for weather, studies tornadoes from a safe distance, using unmanned aerial vehicles, drones. In the interview, Causey describes growing up in Georgia and chasing storms in the mountainous Southeast, in Dixie Alley. Hoping to design weather research systems, he studied mechanical engineering, including 3D modeling and drone development. Chemistry gelled with college classmates Nolan Lunsford and Brent Bouthiller, he says, “And it escalated from there.” The three formed The Sirens Project. They study supercells and tornadoes by guiding UAVs directly into the storms. Causey details how Sirens started as a Kickstarter project, and he discusses the team’s partnership with Ag Eagle, a UAV manufacturer specializing in rugged UAVs used in farming applications. As citizen scientists, the team is careful to avoid intercepting tornadoes near populated areas. He describes the ideal intercept: a slow-moving EF4 tornado in Kansas, in the middle of nowhere. He relates his experience with the El Reno, Oklahoma, tornado on May 31, 2013. Several storm chasers lost their lives that day, including the respected meteorologist Tim Samaras, when the storm made an unexpected change-of-course. The tragic incident spurred Causey to start The Sirens Project, a safer way to study storms. Causey says working with fellow researchers is necessary for gathering more data — data that will lead to improved forecasting and storm-resistant structures. Ultimately, he wants to create models for forecasting convection, which would allow for mapping how and where tornadoes will “fire” — which would reduce false-alarms. The supercell storms that spawn tornadoes change abruptly, require many variables to generate a tornado, and are very short-lived, all of which makes tornadoes more difficult to forecast than hurricanes. The Sirens Project team is prepping for the 2018 storm season and producing a documentary on stormchasing. Causey encourages fellow weather enthusiasts to contact the group. “We love interacting with other stormchasers,” he says.