The Man Who Caught the Storm: The Life of Legendary Tornado Chaser Tim Samaras Hardcover – April 3, 2018

Book was in perfect condition but disappointed to see that the book was entirely text despite the beautiful cover! The man spent his life documenting severe weather and none of those photos are in the book! Still, very worth the read of a great mind! All storm chasers/weather nerds will enjoy this book! Book was in perfect condition.

I have been chasing storms since 1998, mostly to quench a lifelong fascination with weather and tornadoes in particular. And as someone who has experienced a "near miss" (near Jewell, KS, in 2009 with another experienced chase partner and two National Weather Service meteorologists in company), Hargrove's account paints a fully accurate picture of the risks involved in seeking data near violent weather. And while "legendary" may be a somewhat overblown adjective, describing Tim Samaras and his work, his research and discoveries have advanced severe weather understanding considerably. Moreover, Hargrove's work provides a fascinating picture of the development of a scientist (and minus a college degree!) whose work was highly respected by the scientific community. In today's world, it is almost beyond belief his mastery of instrumentation and electronics was entirely self-taught; really no different than those garage tinkerers who do wondrous things with their minds and their hands and who Tim certainly was. He was able to channel this talents and he made a huge impact on understanding tornado formation and their complicated pressure patterns and wind fields. And not to be overlooked is the fact that serious storm chasing requires thousands of miles on the road, seedy motels and lousy food. That Tim was still able to maintain a strong marriage and a wonderful relationship with his wife and children is a true testament to the man he was. There is a lesson in this book for all chasers and especially the young and inexperienced "YouTubers," whose only goal is to “get close.” Tim, his son Paul and his longtime partner, Carl Young, were as experienced a group of storm chasers as one could possibly assemble. It will be an eternal tragedy their names are engraved on that granite marker hear El Reno, Oklahoma. Their timely and tragic deaths were largely a tactical error and resulted from a temporary loss of situational awareness and from violent forces they were trying to understand. Hargrove has done a masterful job of recounting the fascinating life of a gifted man and his growth as an innovative and imaginative scientist. The book is neither overblown with sensationalism nor short of established facts. It effectively puts you in the seat, next to Tim and his Twistex team, and gives a true glimpse into a fascinating but sometimes terrifying environment. I highly recommend it and commend the author on his excellent work.

Tim Samaras.Probably the greatest of modern storm chasers, I'm not sure that Samaras will ever be properly remembered. A renegade from the get-go (he was an engineer by profession, but was self-taught and had only a high-school diploma), Samaras was the sacrificial lamb of tornado research. Professional meteorologists would long bemoan the fact that the interior of a tornado was a place that no researcher would ever be able to penetrate (and quite a few had tried), but Samaras proved them all wrong. With his small, self-designed probes called "turtles," he managed to intercept a violent tornado near Manchester, South Dakota in 2003, providing a critical data set that is still being used by tornado researchers today.A likable guy by all accounts, this retelling of Samaras' life (by the excellent journalist Brantley Hargrove) is darkened by the foreboding feeling that Samaras was doomed to die. Samaras seemed to feel a kinship to tornadoes, and kept shortening the margins of the escape routes he needed to get away from some of the most powerful storms ever recorded. That he and his son Paul and meteorologist Carl Young were finally swallowed by a two-and-a-half-mile wide tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma (and became the first storm-chaser deaths ever recorded) seems preordained. Samaras' final words, as recorded by the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, were "We're going to die." But certainly a part of him already knew this. The harrowing accounts in this book of one daredevil tornado intercept after another leave little doubt of the ultimate outcome.This is a deeply troubling book. Tim Samaras basically gave his life to give us an inside look at a violent tornado, which researchers like Leigh Orf at the University of Wisconsin are using today to reverse-engineer tornadoes and find out what triggers them. In the end, we may well owe our more complete understanding of tornadoes to a Coloradoan with a high-school education and the risks he was willing to take.(Peter Felknor is the author of The Tri-State Tornado: The Story of America's Greatest Tornado Disaster.)

Amazing man - great to know more about him, and a bit more about his son and their colleague all gone too soon.

This book is must read for all those who, like me, are fascinated by the twisters that plague Tornado Alley. It is a brilliant biography about Tim Samaras, who was a dedicated storm chaser, whose initial interest in tornadoes resulted from watching the film, The Wizard Of Oz. 'The Man Who Caught The Storm' recounts his life story and the unfortunate, tragic ending of three lives while trying to outrun one of the most dangerous tornadoes ever to hit the ground near the town of El Reno in Oklahoma, a notorious tornado hotspot. The tension in some of the chases described is gripping, edge of seat reality. The author has researched his material thoroughly, and leads the reader through the life of Tim, as a youngster, pulling apart old television sets and then goes on to set the scene for Tim's adult life, a man who then grew up to be extremely gifted in inventing the gadgetry associated with storm chasing in order to retrieve relevant data such as wind speed, rear flank downdrafts, etc. Tim Samaras is sadly missed among the chasing community, of that there is no doubt. He was a genius, and has left behind him a great legacy, inspiring more research into the mysteries of tornado genesis, and so on. He leaves behind him also a loosely based life story in the genre of film, which is no less than the great movie, Twister. I can highly recommend this book, and its' author. If you only read one book this year about tornadoes and storm chasing, make this the one, it deserves high accolades in the world of both books, and storm chasing and it was a wonderful book! I was devastated to come to the end, but I must say that the notes included there were very, very comprehensive indeed, giving the reader much more scope to follow up on the subject. Brilliant!

Well written.

I had to contact Amazon about this book. The paper was not cut straight, the back cover writing is not printed straight and the paper quality is very poor. This was on offer at £8 for the paperback but even that is ridiculous. Amazon have been kind enough to refund me 50% but I would be careful when ordering this book.

Great book. Well written